《Esper: Search for Power》 Chapter 1 In the Milky Way Galaxy, there was a G-type main sequence star that was commonly but inaccurately described as a Yellow Dwarf, stable for roughly four billion years and with adequate fuel to remain such for another five billion. Orbiting this star was a planet named, by its dominant sentient species, "Earth." On Earth''s continent of North America, in a strikingly average city in the Midwest region of the United States, inside of a fortress-like brick office building sat a paralegal. He was named, by his parents, Daniel Martin. He preferred Dan, and only his grandfather and telemarketers called him Daniel. It was nice, really, to hear "Daniel" in his grandfather''s rough voice, which was deeply accented from the Balearic Islands of his youth, even though his grandfather had been an American citizen for more than forty years. But when telemarketers, who broke the law when they ignored the Federal Do Not Call List, called him by his given name, the annoyance of someone with no right to call him calling regardless compounded the annoyance of someone addressing him by a name they had no right to use and soured his mood. Advances in VOIP (Voice over IP) and auto-dialer technology made Do Not Call regulations virtually unenforceable, which only strengthened the moral imperative to abide by them. Law was the foundation of society, and in a very real sense, of humanity. To break valid law just because one could both profit from and get away with doing so was fundamentally a crime against every living human and those yet to be born. Dan believed this sincerely, and he also routinely exceeded the speed limit by ten miles per hour when driving home from work. It was easier to think, and to get work done, in the evening hours. The office quieted, the phone gradually stopped ringing, his co-workers left, and he had peace. In his quiet, solitude, and peace, he flourished and he worked. Most week nights he left around 2:00 AM. When he drove home, the streets were empty and most deer had stilled, preferring to graze at dawn or dusk, and even if he sped, driving was safer than during the day. Dan never thought much on this minor hypocrisy, and so it did not trouble him. The office he worked in was a satellite of a Big Law firm in Chicago. It existed due to the lower lease and labor expenses found in a smaller, less wealthy city. A partner in the firm managed it, and two associates, two general secretaries, two legal secretaries, one intern, and seven paralegals, including Dan, worked there. Together they occupied the eastern half of the top floor of the two-story rust-red brick building. A sleepy atmosphere settled over the floor as conversations died down and lights in the offices flicked off one by one. Only Dan¡¯s work station still glowed with the bluish cast of a computer monitor. For the self proclaimed night owl, the day was young and the work had just gotten interesting. Unlike most paralegals, he was a specialist, an expert in legal research with a focus on international commerce. He leaned close over his desk in deep concentration, the fingers of his free hand idly dug at the knobbly rubber of his chair¡¯s left wheel. His brain barely registered the satisfying sound. The case he was currently working on was deliciously complex, centered around sovereign debt issued by a South American nation that had undergone an economic collapse triggered by hyperinflation following a banking crisis. Most of the debt had been negotiated down and settled. A small percentage (that still had a face value in the billions of dollars) was outstanding, and had been sold, re-sold, acquired in a corporate merger, put up as collateral in a short term loan that went into partial default, and was now the subject of eleven different lawsuits in four different nations as well as dueling grievances filed with the World Trade Organization. It was exactly the type of fact set he loved.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. ¡°Hey!¡± the clear, little voice broke through Dan¡¯s thoughts and snapped his attention on the small, round face peaking around the doorway. ¡°Hi, Tess, you¡¯re here late.¡± Dan said Even seated at the desk, the intern was almost at his eye level. ¡°You¡¯re one to talk!¡± She almost bounced as she took a quick step into view. ¡°That¡¯s different. I asked for this schedule. Are you the last one here? Need me to lock up?¡± ¡°Nope!¡± Short brown hair fluffed as she shook her head ¡°Steve¡¯s waiting for me downstairs.¡± ¡°Then you¡¯d better hurry, he doesn¡¯t like to wait.¡± ¡°Yeah...¡± Tess picked at her bag strap for a moment before looking back up ¡°There¡¯s a fresh pot of coffee in the break room.¡± Dan let a warm smile break on his face ¡°Fantastic! Thank you!¡± Her round cheeks seemed to go slightly pink before the phone in her hand buzzed angrily. ¡°Steve?¡± He asked. With a tight nod the diminutive intern chirped her goodbye and scrambled for the door. A soothing silence fell over the darkened office, and Dan sighed with contentment. The new intern seemed like a thoughtful girl, but instinct told him to be careful with his smiles around that one. Several minutes later, after he heard the two last cars leave the front parking lot, he reached a suitable stopping point in his work and wheeled toward the promise of fresh coffee. He grabbed his favorite mug, which had a picture of a baby lion on it and had been a gift from his Grandma, and filled it to the brim. Before he could even take a sip, what could be described as a translucent overlay appeared within his vision, and a deep, powerful voice sounded not in his ears, but in his mind, and read the words on this bizarre screen. Daniel Martin, you have been selected as a test subject in suitability trials for your species. Selection criteria met: Random, from subset of humans comprising the 10% most likely to survive a median Initial Trial from the set of 1% of humans scoring highest on the General Adaptive Intelligence scale. All base attributes lower than 10 increased to 10. Aether Attunement attribute unlocked and set to 10. Aether Abilities "Minor Aether Bolt" and "Minor Restore Health" granted. Physical disability Paraplegia (ASIA B Spinal Cord Injury) repaired. Biological Age re-set to 25. You have gained the title "Test Subject". +10% to level directed aether gain, +5 to all unlocked attributes. Initial Test Success Condition: In 60 minutes, a troop of Common Goblins will attack your current location. Survive. External contact restricted. Movement beyond 50feet from the exterior of the structure you are in is restricted. Congratulations! You have been selected to receive a Legendary rarity Blessing. Welcome to The System. Chapter 2 A quiet, rational part of Dan''s mind suggested that he had fallen asleep and was dreaming, or else had suffered a schizophrenic break with reality or some sort of traumatic neurological event. That part of his mind was drowned out and washed away by a flood of absolute certitude. This was real, he knew this more surely than his own name, or that the Sun rises in the morning and sets at night. Before he could form thoughts beyond these, the translucent overlay in his vision and the deep, strong voice in his mind continued. Please choose one of the following Legendary rarity Blessings before proceeding to Class Selection. Gifted Generalist (+15 to all unlocked attributes), R7 Power Well (+10 to Aether Attunement, 10x multiplier to Aether Regeneration Rate, Increases Aether Pool gain per class level by 25%, Grants additional free Aether Ability at class levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20, opens additional Aether Abilities for selection at class levels 10 and 20), R8 Griffon Heart (Grants Aether Ability "Form Shift: Griffon", reduces Aether cost of "Form Shift: Griffon by 95%, +5 to Perception Attribute, +5 to Constitution Attribute, Attribute World Aether (Aura) Attunement unlocked and set to 10), R8 Notice! No Ambient World Aether Detected! Absolute Self Sufficiency (removes need for all external sources of energy, including heat, water, air, and food, and eliminates need for rest), R9 Chosen Esper (+20 to Perception attribute, 2x total Perception attribute multiplier, unlocks Esper class, 3x multiplier to power of Esper school Aether abilities, aether cost of Esper abilities reduced by 2/3, grants Esper school Aether abilities Unerring Aim [self], Sensory Locus, and Peer Through Past [recent, item focus] at level one of Esper class, grants additional Esper abilities with each Esper class level, and greatly improves mental capacity to process and recall sensory and extra-sensory data. Non Esper school Aether abilities receive 1/3 penalty to power and aether cost.) R10 The first thing Dan did was stand. It was the first time he had been able to do so for nearly eight years. He''d dreamed of a cure, though never in quite these circumstances. His legs felt strong, whole, with no sign of atrophy. He felt, clearly and distinctly, the gentle friction of his slacks against his legs, his socks within his shoes, the pebble he had not known was under the heel of his left foot. This mysterious System had not lied - he was healed. Now, he had a decision to make. While he had not been given a time limit, he felt an unnatural pressure weighing on him to choose. Dan forced himself to think things through, as best he could. He had options, and they were rare and presumably powerful. Which would give him the best chance of surviving a goblin attack in an hour? Dan assumed Aether abilities functioned like magic did in fantasy games or literature. Minor Heal seemed self explanatory, and Minor Aether Bolt was clearly a ranged attack. There was no way to know how useful either was against goblins, but if this was a test, logically the tools this System granted had to be at least serviceable. How should he choose? First things first, how would he rate his survival chances without any of the five blessings? The system had told him that his opponent was a troop of goblins, so he used the goblins from the RPG Oblivion as a rough basis for comparison. Humanoid, feral, smaller and physically weaker than humans, but quick, aggressive, and adept at swarm tactics. Proficient with simple weapons like spears and clubs, possibly bows and swords. Probably there would be some sort of elites within the troop such as a chief or shaman. In a word, dangerous. While Dan had some experience in hunting and in wrestling, and was an avid sling marksman, he had never been in a genuine, life or death fight. He knew the building and surrounding grounds quite well. His van was parked in a handicap spot near the rear entrance into the second story of the building, next to the ramp, and he had his sling and lead sling bullets packed, along with his emergency kit - water, trail mix, utility knife, flashlight, aluminum blanket, rope, bandages, ibuprofen, pressure wrap bandage, MREs, activated carbon drinking straw, wasp spray (more effective than pepper spray against human assailants, even if the legality of such use was dubious), backpack to hold it all. He had a tire iron. If he could get the drop on the goblins, then he could probably take out two, possibly three with his sling before they closed the distance. After that, it''d be a hand to hand brawl where he had the advantage of size and strength and they had numbers and experience. Unless they had ranged weapons also, in which case he was probably just dead. Minor Aether Bolt may be more effective than the sling. Minor Restore Health may be able to keep him alive if he survived the initial fight. Overall, he estimated that his chances were low, maybe something like 20-25%. There were too many unknowns for any level of confidence in that estimate, but he had to work with something and that was what he had. Conclusion: If he was going to live through this, it would probably be on the strength of the blessing he chose. That made it easy to eliminate Absolute Self Sufficiency. While it was fascinating, and crapped all over the fundamental laws of physics as he understood them, it didn''t help kill goblins. The other four all had good arguments in their favor. Gifted Generalist would make him stronger, faster, tougher, maybe even smarter or better with Aether. It struck him as the type of boring looking force multiplier that was deceptively powerful and easy to underestimate, and it had no apparent downside.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Power Well looked extremely strong if he had time to learn how to use Aether. If he understood correctly, it would make him roughly twenty times more effective as an Aether mage in a sustained engagement. He had no frame of reference for the long term benefits. They sounded good in an intangible, vague way. They could be awesome eventually, but that wasn''t really relevant now. Overall, to select that option was to put all his eggs in the Minor Aether Bolt basket, and he didn''t know how powerful that ability would be. Comparing the two head to head, Gifted Generalist seemed like a much safer choice, and in the immediate short term more useful, so Power Well was out. Griffin Heart was interesting. It had attribute bonuses. He liked those. They were useful and easily understood. It unlocked a new attribute that did who knows what and might not work at all here based on the disclaimer. Throw that out for now. Obviously it would let him shape shift into a griffin. It was a safe bet that he would be able to fly in that form and be at least somewhat physically powerful, perhaps comparable to a large Golden Eagle on the weak end of plausible estimates. It might be monstrously strong and make the entire test trivially easy, though that seemed unlikely. If he could fly, and if he could change back to human form at will, he could get to the roof and fight from the high ground. How much was that worth? Probably less than the attribute boost from Gifted Generalist. It was close, but he leaned toward picking Gifted Generalist over Griffon Heart, as with his life on the line Dan felt more comfortable with a sure thing. He had no idea how to fight as a Griffon after all. He might not even have time to learn how to use the body well enough to fly, if the ability did not program his mind with the skill instinctively. Overall, it just did not seem like a safe enough gamble. Finally, there was Chosen Esper. It had the highest rarity - presumably the highest rarity possible. It had by far the longest description, and it was reasonable to assume there was some correlation between rarity and power, even if the type of power may not be useful for this specific trial. Attributes seemed to have a base of 10 for average, in which case a flat bonus of an additional 20 points of perception and a 2x multiplier to total perception would mean a functional attribute score of 60, or 6x the human average. At minimum, that would mean incredibly acute senses. Important when fighting against an unknown number of enemies with unknown capabilities. If it also affected balance and spatial perception, it would be invaluable in a fight. Greatly improved ability to process sensory data sounded terribly useful as well, for dodging and such. Unerring Aim seemed a bit nebulous. Did it help him physically execute the movements necessary to follow through on that aim? How long did it last? How long did it take to, for lack of a better word, cast? But it could be very powerful if it worked like he hoped it did. Sensory Locus sounded like it would let him create some sort of a fixed point and perceive what was going on around it for an unknown length of time. Finally, and decisively, there was Peer Through Past. Based on the name of the ability, it would let him look through the recent past of an item. In the northeast corner office of the first floor of the building, which belonged to the managing partner, Gabriel Gonzalez, there was a safe. Dan happened to know that his boss kept an M9A3 Beretta handgun with a full magazine in that safe. Gabriel bought the gun from from Dan''s grandfather, who owned a sporting goods store with a firing range. Dan did not know the combination to the safe, but if that combination had been a sixth option for his blessing, there was no question that''s the option he would take. Dan also knew Gabriel kept a bottle of very good whiskey in his safe, and that when the weather was good he would pour himself a shot before putting the bottle back in his safe, locking it, and walking home. Peer Through Past could potentially give him the combination. That meant that Chosen Esper had a very strong fail case - essentially, he''d have super senses - as well as an extremely high upside if everything worked out. On top of that, it was what he wanted to pick. In any unfamiliar situation, what he wanted above all else was information, something to grab on to and analyze. Chosen Esper was all about knowing more, and so was Dan. Dan didn''t know how to actually make his selection, having decided on it. He guessed that saying it aloud would work, but on a hunch decided instead to form a certain, directed thought, and made a mental declaration, aimed at this System: "I choose Chosen Esper for my blessing." This worked. Congratulations! You have received the Legendary rarity Blessing "Chosen Esper". Associated attributes, skills, and abilities granted. "Esper" class unlocked. Please select a class (5 available). Ranger (+2 Agility, +1 Perception per level, skills and level perks focused on ranged combat, stealth, evasion, wilderness survival and scouting) R2 Generalist (+1 to unlocked attribute of your choice each level, +1 to a base attribute [in the repeating sequence Strength, Constitution, Agility, Perception] per level. No class specific skills, general class perks) R1 Aetherist (+2 Aether Attunement per level, choice of one available Aether ability granted each level, skills and level perks focused on Aether Abilities) R3 Aether Healer (+2 Aether Attunement, +1 Perception per level, choice of one available Aether ability granted each level, additional Healing school Aether abilities available for selection, additional Healing school Aether abilities granted at levels 1, 5, 10, 15 and 20. Skills and level perks focused on Aether Abilities with a primary sub-focus on Restoration school abilities.) R4 Esper (+2 Perception, +1 to unlocked attribute of your choice each level, choice of one available Aether ability granted each level, additional Esper school Aether abilities granted at various levels. Skills and level perks focused on Esper school Aether abilities and the Perception attribute. Class bonus: Increased ability to process and retain sensory and extra-sensory data.) R6 This was a thankfully easy decision, one Dan had already made when he chose his blessing. He made his selection with another mental command. Immediately, a torrent of sensation washed over him and nearly overwhelmed his hold on consciousness. Ambient sounds - the whir of the air conditioner, the chirps of insects outside the window of the break room, his own breathing and heartbeat, the rattle of a bit of loose metal in one of the air vents - were suddenly each clear, as if he''d been right next to them and listening intently. A melange of scents assailed him. He smelled the leftover Chinese takeout most of his co-workers had apparently had for lunch, the tacos a lone culinary dissenter ate instead, a previously imperceptible whiff of the molecules of dog crap he hadn''t known was on the right wheel of his chair, the supposedly scentless antiperspirant/deodorant combo he''d used after his shower and the sweat it almost covered, remnants of cleaning products, and above a dozen other odors, the rich aroma of coffee, deeper and more vibrant than he''d imagined possible. Beyond these, Dan felt an influx of information from new senses alien to human experience. There was an omni-directional heat map of his surroundings - again, lit up by the coffee. He could - it was difficult to describe - almost see in every direction as well, before he realized that it was in fact some form of echolocation. He could sense a new, latent energy within himself. It had to be this "Aether" the System kept referencing. Most bizarre of all, he could sense the future. It was only by a handful of seconds, but all of his senses, old and knew, revealed both each moment as it happened and those to follow, simultaneously. It was all far too much to handle, yet somehow he knew he was much closer to processing the rush of data than should have been possible. With each second that passed, it became easier to center himself in the stream. No doubt his class and blessing bonuses to sensory cognition were to thank for that. After thirty or forty seconds that subjectively felt like thirty or forty minutes, Dan acclimated, picked up his mug with the image of a lion cub that his grandma had given him, and took a sip of coffee. It was the most delicious, intense taste in the lived experience of humankind on Planet Earth. Chapter 3 Dan finished his cup of coffee. The goblin attack loomed, but this was not time wasted - it was time invested. He had stayed remarkably, even suspiciously calm so far, and at this point he was confident that he had the system to blame or thank for that. For unknown reasons, it had seemingly influenced his brain to keep him from reacting as a normal person of sound mind and judgment would to these circumstances and freaking the heck out. Still, Dan felt it was important to reestablish a mental equilibrium before further action, and drank his coffee while his new super senses slowly began to feel more normal. When he was done, 53 minutes remained. It was time to plan. First step: Make a mental list of every task that would be useful and realistically possible within the time limit. Second step: Estimate the relative importance of everything on the list. Third step: Estimate the time everything on the list would take. Fourth step: Order the list so as to accomplish the most within the remaining minutes. Actual first step: See what the system notification that had been waiting patiently within a corner of his consciousness was. To his great relief, its initial appearance had been much less demanding than previous system messages, and he had sensed instinctively that he could bring it to the forefront of his mind by focusing on it. Given how consequential every previous interaction with the system had been, it was dumb to make plans without knowing what this one would bring, even if its more unassuming character may indicate a lower level of importance. Congratulations! You have reached level 1. Please choose an unlocked attribute (Strength, Constitution, Agility, Perception or Aether Attunement) to receive a +5 bonus. Dan thought a command at the system. "Status." Name: Daniel Martin Age: 29 Species: Human Class: Esper Level: 1 Health: 116/116 Aether Pool: 115/115 Health Regeneration: .031/minute Aether Regeneration: .192/second Attributes Strength: 17 Constitution: 16 Agility: 15 Perception: 74 Aether Attunement: 15 Available: 1 Skills (none) Perks (none, 1 available) Aether Abilities Unerring Aim [self] (R5, Esper): Level 1 Sensory Locus (R5, Esper): Level 1 Peer Through Past [recent, item focus] (R3, Esper): Level 1A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Minor Restore Health (R2, Restoration): Level 1 Minor Aether Bolt (R1, Evocation): Level 1 Available: 1 Interesting. The first thing that jumped out at him was that his health was one hundred plus his constitution, and that if his mental arithmetic was accurate, it would take a little over half an hour to regain one health, or around two days and eight or nine hours to go from death''s door to perfect health. Dan could remember nothing that would explain such a super human rate of healing, but wasn''t about to complain. It was typical of him, he noted with a wry smile, to bore down on a detail first. His attributes were rather good, even accounting for the +5 to all attributes bonus, assuming that ten was a baseline. His Esper school Aether abilities were, unsurprisingly, much more rare than the two he''d gotten with the first system message. It remained to be seen if they were more useful - or, for that matter, how useful any of them would be. Before making further committal decisions, he needed to know what each attribute did and what perks were and which were available to him. His hypothesis that the system responded to mental intent more than exact commands had so far more or less held up, so he made another mental query: "Attribute descriptions, please." He did not know why he added the "please". Probably ingrained habit. Strength: Increases physical power and the body''s ability to resist forces exerted by its own strength. Has a minor effect on explosive movement such leaping or sprinting. At high levels unlocks physical combat abilities. Constitution: Increases maximum health and rate of health regeneration. Increases physical endurance. At high levels unlocks self healing abilities, increases mental endurance, increases damage resistance, and reduces need for food and water. Agility: Increases speed, leaping, climbing and other forms of self propelled movement, excluding self propelled vehicles. Improves bodily coordination and control. Improves flexibility. Perception: Increases the effectiveness of all senses, reaction speed and precision, and mental perception of and attention to detail. Increases the power and decreases the Aether cost of Esper school Aether abilities. Improves the healing and durability of sensory organs. Increases ability to process sensory input. At high levels unlocks additional senses and the ability to regenerate destroyed sensory organs. Currently unlocked senses: Thermal, Echolocation, System Identify, Danger Sense, Aether Sense, Tactical Precognition. Aether Attunement: Allows use of Aether abilities. Increases per-level growth of Aether Pool and rate of Aether Regeneration. Increases power of non-Esper school Aether abilities. Okay, that was pretty much as expected. It seemed clear that the free attribute point and the 5 point bonus should go to Agility. His Perception was already monstrous and it seemed doubtful that increasing it further would have nearly as much impact as improving one of his weaker attributes. Aether Attunement would put valuable resources into a path he''d walked away from when he picked Chosen Esper. Strength seemed pretty useless. Constitution would help him take a hit, but he would much rather avoid getting hit in the first place. Agility would also synergize with his super senses. Knowing you were about to get smacked wasn''t useful if you weren''t fast enough to get out of the way. He mentally locked in his choices, and confirmed that his agility was now 21 rather than 15. If attribute increases had a linear effect, then he should now be slightly faster than Usain Bolt. Not bad. Dan next checked what perks were available, and was presented with a list that was long and filled with perks that were mostly useless in the immediate term. He wanted something that would insure him a bit if things went wrong or he slipped up, literally or figuratively, in the fight to come. After scanning his options, he narrowed the choice to three. There was one that would let him heal 10 points of health plus one per class level once per day, another that improved pain resistance, and the final perk he considered was called "Brain Cage". Its description said that it would improve his resistance to brain and nervous system injuries, and increase his ability to heal nerve damage, including to the brain. He knew that that option pulled at him from the worst day of his life, from the trauma that had yet to fully heal even while the system had restored him physically. He knew, and picked it anyway. It was tactically defensible. He would perform better if he was less anxious about injuries that could take away control of his body or mind. Next up: Time to check the available aether abilities. The list was much shorter than that of perks, but sadly, nothing looked too helpful. Fire Touch, Ice Touch, Minor Aether Shield, Cleanse (which apparently physically cleaned one''s body and garments), Enhance Vision [self], Enhance Hearing [self], and Detect Monster were his options. Minor Aether Shield did seem potentially useful, but there was a real concern that with his penalty to non-Esper school aether abilities he could not use it efficiently. Detect Monster had the highest rarity at R3 and was within his specialization, so he went with that one. Goblins seemed monstrous enough to him. It should work. Hopefully. Dan glanced at his watch and saw that he 46 minutes left. He''d also rushed ahead rather than follow his planned decision making process. Easy mistake to make. Understandable, given the circumstances. Still a mistake. Dan frowned. It would be frightfully easy to spend every remaining second paralyzed by thought and analysis. He decided to limit himself to 6 more minutes of planning. Then it would be time to work. He was no one''s idea of a commando, but he had seen Home Alone twice, and he had a few ideas... Chapter 4 He should have been afraid. He was alone in a utility closet that smelled of dust, cleaning chemicals, salt, his own sweat, and dozens of other odors that were distinct to his newly super human olfactory powers. It was the middle of the night, and he was waiting for an imminent goblin attack, which should begin in exactly one minute and forty-three seconds by his wristwatch. And there was some fear, just a little, almost a tickle in the back of his brain. To Dan''s surprise, his dominant feeling was excitement, the kind he used to get before an important exam, or a wrestling match. He was alert, focused; it was hard to keep his right foot from bouncing softly, moved by over heightened nervous energy. In his left hand he held a snow shovel that had probably been expensive and of high quality when new, and still held up well. Someone had reapplied a coat of varnish to the long hard wood handle at some point, and the aluminum blade, reinforced with a strip of steel, had a few nicks and dents but was overall in good shape. It wasn''t the most impressive shield he could have imagined, but he could easily have done worse. In fact, with one glaring exception - he had not managed to get the hand gun - his preparations had gone swimmingly. Everything else had, seemingly, gone exactly to plan. Though it remained to be seen how effective those plans would be when they met first contact with the enemy. In his right hand he felt the comfortable, familiar weight of his shepherd''s sling, hanging securely from the loop around his middle finger and the tab pinched between his thumb and index finger, the polyester cord pulled taut by the lead sling bullet that rested in the pouch 14 inches beneath his hand. His grandfather had had the bullets custom made by a company that manufactured lead weights for sport fishing. They were egg shaped, 1.4 ounces of metal, 1.6" long and 1" wide, and Dan had 15 more in a belt bag (he disliked the more common term "fanny pack") that circled his waist. In ancient times, Baleric slingers were renowned for their skill and lethality, prized as mercenaries throughout the Mediterranean region. Dan knew this because his grandfather had told him all about it again, and again, and again, from infancy: "Daniel, you must always remember where we come from and who we are, and be proud. Wherever you go, whoever you choose to become, when you use your sling, it connects you through time to our people, across distance to our homeland, and connects you to me, my dear grandson." Dan had quite naturally become an expert slinger, at least by modern standards for the art, and practiced four or five times a week at the archery range in his grandfather''s store. He found it soothing, almost meditative, the whir of the sling about his head, the tension and pull on his finger before he released the bullet, the simple repetition of well trained movements. Now, he thought, his inherited hobby may save his life. His sling was not a gun, but it was a weapon, and five minutes of experimentation after he completed the rest of his preparations had shown that his ability with the tool was staggeringly beyond what it had been an hour prior. As the final seconds before the attack slipped away, Dan reviewed his plans and sought to mentally ready himself for the absurd trial to come. He also watched, listened, smelled, thermal mapped, and echo-located, both inside and outside of the building. His expanded senses had begun to feel almost natural and normal over the last hour, and the rush of data no longer smothered his mind. The Sensory Locus ability had turned out to be awesome. It functioned as an infinitely small point through which he could sense everything he could have sensed had he been physically there. He could have up to two of them active at a time, and place them at any location he could reach with a portion of his body. When he placed one an internal timer would appear within his mind, counting down their 6 hour 24 minute duration. Each cost 18 Aether from his Aether Pool, which took a bit less than 2 minutes to regenerate. So it was that while he waited in a dark utility room, a sensory locus in the broad hallway outside the door and a second 11'' above the roof of the building - enhanced agility helped a great deal with both climbing and jumping - fed him a constant flow of information as if he were in three places at once. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. The world outside the office building had gotten... strange. It was as if someone had taken a giant ice cream scoop and cut a sphere with the building at its center out of reality, and plopped it somewhere else. His perception was inhumanly sharp right up to fifty feet from the building, and then all his senses dissipated into an inky, thick haze. The exception was the sky. Clouds still slowly marched across the moon, and bright stars peeked through holes in the cloudy quilt draped over the world. The electricity in the building was still on. Plumbing still worked. Telephones and internet connections did not. It was all, well, as weird as the rest of all of this. Dan watched through the Locus on the roof and the goblins came. They emerged from the inky mist surrounding the building, coming from every direction, and moved like baboons. They loped on three limbs and carried either a short spear with a wooden shaft and black stone spearhead or a lit torch in their right hands. Some carried crude, lit torches that cast jagged shadows across their features in the night. Physical characteristics: dark, gray-green skin, no body hair, long dog like snouts, sharp needle teeth with large, dangerous canines, small solid black eyes, large pointed ears, no apparent sex organs, sharp retractable claws, opposable thumbs, roughly the size of an adult German Shepherd, but lighter boned. Some had a cudgel or black stone (obsidian?) dagger strapped to their waist by a leather band. There were more goblins than he had expected. They came in threes. Each trio had a torchbearer, all of which, his "System Identify" sense informed him through the rooftop locus, were level one, and a presumed group leader of level three. The remaining members of the trios were level two. Eight groups of three, twenty-four in total. There was a strange uniformity across the group, almost like the System had a can labeled "One troop of Goblins - shake vigorously and pour on Dan." With his newly enhanced ability to process sensory data, these observations were completed within a handful of seconds. In that time, the invaders began to spread out and encircle the building, still moving in threes. It was well into autumn, and while the day had been warm the night was not, but the monsters showed no outward signs of discomfort from the chill. Dan would have been cold with no clothes. A final group came out of the haze and appeared in the driveway that led to the front parking lot. There were five goblins. One was perhaps 70% larger by mass than its fellows, and wore a fur about its neck and back like a cape. It walked upright, if hunched, and its musculature looked dense and tensely coiled. It was the first being or thing, other than himself, that had shown up to Dan''s Aether sense. It glowed with a strange power that he could somehow tell was bound up with the goblin''s body, constrained within and empowering it. Dan used System Identify (which apparently was an active rather than passive and continuous sense) on the mysterious goblin. Goblin Chieftain (Aural Warrior), lvl 6. Monster Type: Common Goblin. This was the leader then. While the chieftain was the first of the group to catch his attention, it was not the most threatening. An old, old goblin walked on its hind legs behind the massive warrior, and leaned heavily on a gnarled wooden staff, clutched by both knobby hands, with each slow, pained step it took. Its skin was gray, cracked, papery thin, and hung loosely on its skeletal frame. The eyes, though. The small, black eyes radiated fierce power and vitality. And aether whipped around and through the ancient goblin like a gathering storm. Even before he used System Identify, Dan knew from a deep, primal instinct that bubbled from within his guts: If he could not kill the old, old goblin as soon as the fight began, Dan would die. He wondered if that was the first time his Danger Sense had seen fit to activate. Then he used System Identify. Goblin Shaman, lvl 10. Monster Type: Common Goblin. Dan wished he had that gun. Chapter 5 The chieftain''s troop of five walked at the slow pace of the shaman down the driveway. Once they reached the parking lot, the hulking fur clad leader paused, sniffed the air for several seconds, then dropped to all fours and began to run. The shaman stayed behind while the three others in the group surrounded it like protectively, like an honor guard. The big goblin was fast at a run, and the way it moved reminded Dan of video he had watched of hyenas chasing down an antelope. It circled the building, pausing briefly at each group of three. There were eight such trios, spaced evenly about the building at a distance of fifteen to twenty feet from the walls, one group at each corner and one group at the midpoint of each side. The leader of each group chuffed quietly to the chieftain as it passed. Finally, having gathered its intelligence, the big goblin arrived back in the front parking lot and rejoined its original group, where it seemed to have a brief conversation with the old, deceptively frail shaman. The chieftain howled. It was an eerie, echoing wail, part wolf, part cougar, part nothing Dan had heard before, and the sound seemed to cut through him like a wet, cold wind. The goblins sprang to action. In the front of the building, the trio at the center of the wall joined with the chieftain''s group and the trio on one corner. Together, they rushed the glass double doors that were the main entrance to the building, the chieftain in the lead. The structure was built into the gradual rise of a hill, and a driveway ran up its west side from the front parking lot to a smaller lot in the back. A wide, short concrete stairway, only a few steps, led from the rear parking lot to the entrance into the second story. Three more trios converged and swarmed the stairs to that door. With surprising synchronicity, the doors on the first and second floors shattered. Goblins, it seemed, were unfamiliar with glass, and a few were cut as they crashed through and into the building. Dan could not see the cacophony of green gray bodies burst through the upper door, reform into trios and spread out to search each room. He had set his rooftop sensory locus closer to the back of the roof than to the front, but as they climbed the stairs and the angle grew more severe, even his super human vision was obstructed by the sight line. He did not much mind because his focus was on the first floor, as were he and the greater number of the strange beings who had come to kill him. These, he could see, and hear, and smell, and system identify, and echolocate, and thermal image, very clearly indeed. Dan''s second sensory locus floated, invisible, in the middle of the broad central hallway that normally channeled lawyers, secretaries, paralegals, clients, insurance agents, financial planners and couriers to their various offices. Now it was host to eleven fierce, unearthly predators armed with stone age weapons, and it was lit only by their torches. Dan stood, breathing as quietly as he could, in the utility closet down the hall. He gently leaned his snow shovel shield against the wall to free his left hand to take the building''s master circuit breaker switch. There was little gain in wishful thinking; he knew that well. Still, he really, really hoped this was gonna work. He could not think of any reasonable scenario where he would survive a fair fight against twenty-nine alien hunters experienced in violence. The broad hallway was floored with wide, cream colored ceramic tiles that mud and salt quickly turned an ugly, cloudy gray. Generally there was a large, thin commercial rug that covered the entrance and helped a bit, but Dan had removed it and used it to jam a door in one of the first floor offices, just as a diversion. The offices were carpeted, but the ceramic tiles flowed, unbroken, into the men''s room a third of the way down on the east side of the hall and into the women''s room directly across from it, roughly fifty feet from the door to his hiding place. Water flowed back from each restroom and covered the tile in a thin sheet, steadily trickling out. Dan waited to see if his pursuers would investigate. They did. After kneeling to snuff the water and conferring with the shaman, the chieftain directed one trio into each restroom. It was the obvious choice; they were the only source of sound or movement, both from the water that poured steadily from plugged sinks. Why there was water pressure Dan could not guess - he was just glad it worked. He could not see through the bathroom walls (why didn''t he have x-ray vision among his super senses?), and so just waited for a count of four-one-thousand before he flipped the switch and set off his trap. In each bathroom, an extension cord ran from the electrical outlet in the hallway into the room where the cord was then stripped and the bare wire looped just inside the doorway. Bathroom electrical outlets, Dan knew, had ground fault interrupt protection, but he hoped that the hall outlet did not. Less than twenty seconds had passed since the troop had broken through the glass doors and into the building. As soon as Dan flipped the circuit breaker, a whole lot began to happen at once. The lights turned on. The smoke alarms detected the torches (they had battery backups, but he''d removed the batteries) and began to blare. Overhead sprinklers started to sputter and rain. Both restrooms erupted in pained howls. Dan activated Unerring Aim [Self], and began to whirl his sling about his head with his right hand and grabbed the door knob with his left. The goblins in his watery electrocution trap tried to scramble through the suddenly painful water that coated the floor and get back out into the hall, but hit loops of exposed live wire and collapsed in convulsions. One of the chieftains retinue, a level four guard, displayed impressive willpower when it dashed through the electrified puddle into the men''s room only to fall to the same wire trap. The Chieftain roared and spun around. It seemed desperate to find something it could hit. The goblins in the hall were less affected by the shocks than those in the bathrooms had been, but all were having some difficulty dealing with them. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Dan was outnumbered dozens to one. He needed to fight dirty, and he needed this distraction. He used it. The knob turned. He kicked the door open with his right foot as he grabbed the snow shovel in his left hand, the sling still spinning about his head, and stepped out into the hallway. Everything moved as if in slow motion, the next few seconds carved in granite in his tactical precognition. The sling bullet launched from its pouch and flew, true to the name of the aether ability, unerringly into the head of the Goblin Shaman, who sank, boneless, like a helium balloon with a fast leak. As it fell, it dimmed rapidly in Dan''s aether sense, but a small amulet that hung around its limp neck continued to glow. He had no time to wonder at this. Before the lead projectile had even hit, the chieftain threw its spear back at Dan, followed shortly by the spears of the two remaining warriors in its honor guard. The snow shovel blocked the chieftain''s spear only partially, but while it punched through the aluminum its trajectory was shunted safely off to the side. One of others missed completely, and the third spear, Dan caught out of the air with his right hand. Two steps took him to the last door in the hall, which was both a stairway to the second floor and an emergency exit via a back door that led to a steep, short stairwell carved into the hill up to the rear parking lot. The entire fight had taken only a handful of seconds. He slipped into the stairway, closed the door, and raced toward the top, still holding the pilfered spear as the surviving goblins chased him. The combination of system enhanced agility and truly superhuman reflexes and perception really was amazing. As he ran, he spared a fraction of a second for the system messages that had floated into his consciousness. Monster Defeated, Common Goblin (lvl 1). Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Common Goblin (lvl 1). Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Common Goblin (lvl 2). Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Goblin Warrior (lvl 3). Aether Gained. Congratulations! You have reached Level 2 in Esper Class. 2 Points of Perception awarded. 1 free attribute point awarded. 1 free level two perk awarded. 1 free Aether Ability awarded. Aether Ability "Sense Deceit" (R6, Esper) awarded. Monster Defeated, Common Goblin (lvl 2). Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Goblin Brute (lvl 3). Aether Gained. Monster 5x or more higher than your level Defeated, Goblin Shaman (lvl 10). Bonus Aether Gained. Congratulations! You have reached Level 3 in Esper Class. 2 Points of Perception awarded. 1 free attribute point awarded. 1 free level three perk awarded. 1 free Aether Ability awarded. Aether Ability "Eagle Eye" (R3, Esper) awarded. You have reached 80 Perception. Warning! Unlocking new sense "Sense Life" while in combat may lead to dangerous disorientation. Unlock delayed. You may unlock immediately (not recommended) or at a time of your choice. Congratulations! You have reached Level 4 in Esper Class. 2 Points of Perception awarded. 1 free attribute point awarded. 1 free level four perk awarded. 1 free Aether Ability awarded. Aether Ability "Universal Compass" (R9, Esper) awarded. Skill Recognized - Sling Marksmanship, Level 5 Monster Defeated, Goblin Guard (lvl 4). Aether Gained. Dan''s heart fluttered as he realized how close he had just come to death. If he had misaimed or mistimed his attack even slightly, his danger sense and tactical precognition agreed: He would have had three heartbeats left, four at the most. Chapter 6 Dan took the stairs three at a time, leaping toward the top. They ran from the back of the building up toward the front, and were floored with the weird synthetic material that was meant to resemble marble and made out of Olympian Pantheon knows what. What mattered there was that Dan was pretty sure they''d be slippery when wet. At the top of the stairs there was a small level space before the door into to the second floor, which he had barricaded from the inside with a stiff, aluminum framed stacking chair wedged under the door handle. There were also a barrel, which had been in the utility room and full of salt for the sidewalk and parking lot and was now full of water from the second floor men''s room mixed with three quarters of a container of dish soap from the break room, and a spear. Kind of. One of his co-workers had left a sharp, large-ish chef''s knife in the break room. Dan considered taking it for a short sword, but had not the slightest clue how to knife fight, and was a bit troubled by a saying he had heard (even if it was of questionable veracity) that the loser of a knife fight died in the street and the winner died in the ambulance. He didn''t know how to use a spear either, but figured that with his presumably superior reach, he could at least poke the pointy end into a goblin before it could get to him, given his newly super human agility and reflexes. Especially if he could engineer a situation where he would have the high ground, and his enemies were off balance. This second trap wasn''t much, but he hadn''t had much time. Or any relevant skills or training. So it was that he reached the top of the stairs and found his broom stick with a kitchen knife duct taped to one end waiting for him, just as the goblin chieftain''s strange aether aura flared and the creature burst through the door below. Like glass, goblins were apparently unfamiliar with door handles. Somehow, the fact that that thing had slammed through the door bodily instead was not comforting. Dan kicked the barrel of soapy water down the stairs as the chieftain, momentarily disoriented from running through a particle board door, gathered itself. At the sight of the rolling plastic barrel and cascading water, a look of what might have been apprehension flashed across the brutish creature''s face, and it barked a loud warning to its pack mates. Dan had hoped that the electrocution stunt downstairs might trick his opponents into thinking that he was some kind of wizard with the power to control water and turn it deadly, giving him just a sliver of a psychological edge, enough to make them hesitate a bit. That seemed to have worked. The distracted chieftain barely had time to flare its aether aura before a sling bullet cracked its forehead. It clearly had the ability to use a variant of aether to strengthen and to shield itself, as while it staggered it did not seem badly injured. He would have aimed for an eye, and with "Unerring Aim" he believed that he may well have hit his mark, but their eyes were small and he feared that while breaking the eye socket would be painful, it may not slow the thing down much. One of the two other remaining goblins in the chieftain''s group had meanwhile collected the spear that Dan sidestepped on his way to the stairs and followed its leader into the stairwell. All the while, Dan''s senses were on overdrive, more information flooding in every fraction of a second than he could have imagined experiencing an hour before - not that he could have imagined any of this an hour before. In particular, his danger sense and tactical precognition worked together and warned him how to move so as not to die. Even with just the five senses healthy humans were born with, enhanced to superhuman levels, and his improved agility, he probably could have dodged the spear the enraged monster threw up the stairs at him. It was a tough angle for the goblin to make the throw. But he''d watched it pick the weapon up from his sensory locus in the hallway, even as he was sprinting up the stairs. His sense of danger had warned him that if he moved to his left this much, he''d be injured, and if he moved this much more, he''d be dead. His tactical precognition (which he was far from figuring out the exact mechanics of) had let him know exactly how to bend. So it was almost laughably easy to slip the spear, even as the momentum in his limbs from launching the sling bullet tugged at his body, in full accordance with Newton''s First Law. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. The monster that threw the spear seemed to Dan more feral, bestial, than its fellows. Needle teeth bared in an ugly snarl, the thing charged up the slippery staircase, with far more blood lust than self preservation instinct. It lost traction three stairs up and reached a clawed forelimb out to the wall to stabilize itself. That was all the chance the human needed, and a lead orb sunk into the alien beast''s head. Monster Defeated, Goblin Berserker (lvl 4). Aether Gained. The remaining member of the chieftain''s escort had run into trouble extricating itself from the electrified puddle flooding the central hallway below, but finally managed the job. But as it scampered to the wreck of the stairwell door, the chieftain grunted a warning, and the smaller monster pulled up short. The barrel, which had been lumbering leisurely down the steps all the while, came to a gentle rest at the fur cloaked beast''s feet as it regarded Dan with a strangely measured glare. He had the monster''s attention now, and while fiercely inhuman, the creature was disconcertingly clever. The human whirled his sling and the goblin glared. Dan didn''t want to attack while it was watchful and ready; given its aura abilities that might not do anything but waste a bullet and expose himself while he loaded another. His tactical precognition seemed to agree with that assessment, though that sense seemed more precise on defense than offense, possibly due to synergy with danger sense. On the other hand, if the chieftain retreated, gathered reinforcements, Dan could be in real trouble. He was quite cornered. Even now, the nine goblins in the second floor had gathered to the sounds of battle behind the stairwell door and were clawing and scrabbling and pounding at it, trying to get in, though his chair barricade held firm. But the way back outside to the rest of the troop led through the flooded hallway, and the chieftain had no way of knowing how to transverse it safely. It also, thankfully, did not seem to know that it was not a wall but a door immediately behind it, one that would lead up and out into the rear parking lot. After a standoff that lasted subjective aeons and an objective few seconds, the chieftain glanced up at its dead tribe mate. The living goblin''s coal black, beady eyes hardened, and it howled. Then it charged the stairs. It slipped a little on the first step, and was met with a sling bullet to the forehead. The monster was ready for it. Its aura surged and absorbed the impact, and the alien barely slowed. A second slip halfway up, a second sling bullet to the head, a second surge of aura dissipated the force. Then, nearly to the top, it slipped again. This time the bullet took it not in the head but in the left knee. Earlier, it had used its aura to shield its entire body when Dan loosed his sling, but every time the human had aimed for a goblin''s head. The chieftain had the pattern. Besides, it couldn''t have infinite reserves of aura. So while the goblin''s aura flared and shielded its head, its kneecap shattered and it fell heavily, just before the platform at the top of the stairs. Dan''s hastily concocted plan had worked so far. Now he really, really hoped the monstrous goblin was legitimately injured rather than playing possum, and that he could trust his precognition. He grabbed his broom stick, kitchen knife halberd and jabbed hard into the base of the chieftain''s thick neck. The monster swiped at the broomstick with its sharp claws, its aura flaring, and snapped the wood, but the knife bit deeply into it. Dan took the second spear, the one he had caught mid-flight downstairs, and stabbed again. The chieftain blocked with its right forearm, broke the spear, but in Dan''s aether sense the creature''s power was fading away. With a final effort it snarled, marshalled its aura and leaped up. There was no space to dodge the monster''s bulk so Dan squared and kicked as hard as he could with his right leg, connecting solidly with its thick chest. At the same time the beast raked Dan''s shin with a vicious clawed swipe before the kick flung it bodily back down the stairs. If everything had been equal, kicking that monster, coiled thick with muscle and almost Dan''s match in total mass, would not have gone well. Wounded, weakened, attacking from slippery footing against an enemy with the high ground and the ability to forsee its movements, everything was stacked against the goblin. It slid to the bottom, the chef''s knife still sunk in its neck, and was still. Monster Defeated, Goblin Chieftain [Aural Warrior], (lvl 6). Aether Gained. Chapter 7 The Goblin Chieftain was dead. The Goblin Shaman was dead. Two of the level four goblins that had escorted them, along with the lower level goblins caught in the electric trap, were dead. All but one of the goblins who had broken into the first floor were dead. Dan killed them. He stood at the top of a stairwell with his weight on his left leg while waves of pain shot up his right, electric and hot, from the cuts in his skin and cracks in his bone where the dying chieftain''s aura empowered claws had raked him. Blood wet his slacks as he quickly activated the aether ability "Minor Restore Health". Immediately he felt his aether pool deplete, a still unfamiliar sensation, then felt relief as the tissues of his leg stitched back together over the course of several seconds, even as a small swarm of goblins flailed ineffectually at the door to his left. They had heard the fight crescendo, then quiet, and they had to know that their chieftain and strongest pack mates had fallen. Something told Dan that they weren''t genuinely trying too hard to get through that door just now. He checked his system status. Name: Daniel Martin Age: 29 Species: Human Class: Esper Level: 4 Health: 161.21/164 Aether Pool: 118.22/160 Health Regeneration: .044/minute Aether Regeneration: .267/second Attributes Strength: 17 Constitution: 16 Agility: 21 Perception: 86 Aether Attunement: 15 Available: 3 Skills Sling Marksmanship, Level 5 Perks Brain Cage (3 available) Aether Abilities Unerring Aim [self] (R5, Esper): Level 1 Sensory Locus (R5, Esper): Level 1 Peer Through Past [recent, item focus] (R3, Esper): Level 1 Minor Restore Health (R2, Restoration): Level 1 Minor Aether Bolt (R1, Evocation): Level 1 Detect Monster (R3, Esper): Level 1 Sense Deceit (R6, Esper): Level 1 Eagle Eye (R3, Esper): Level 1 This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Universal Compass (R9, Esper): Level 1 (3 available) Dan gambled, used "Minor Restore Health" again, and quickly checked his status after grabbing the spear the goblin berserker had thrown at him. Another 40 points vanished from his aether pool, but over the next 10 seconds and the careful trip down the slippery stairs, his leg was restored to perfect condition. He also assigned his three free attribute points to Agility as he gingerly made his way down. It was a risk to go so low on aether, but there were two factors that tipped his decision. First, pain could distract him in a fight. He was not a stranger to pain, but he was also not used to focusing through it with such immediate life or death stakes. Second, his entire battle plan was based on using precognition to dodge, and he wasn''t sure he could afford an injured leg slowing him. Looking at it in his status, he was down less than three points of health out of a pool of well over one hundred. That seemed to say more that it would take a lot to outright kill him than that his injury had been minor or insignificant. He still had the goblin around the corner to deal with. It was waiting in ambush just outside the door at the base of the stairs, spooked certainly, but not cowering or running away. The spear Dan held was worse for the wear. It''d been thrown into walls twice in the last couple of minutes. But its stone head still seemed sharp enough to function. He stepped carefully over the chieftain''s carcass and paused a moment just before the shattered door. He had an enormous advantage over the monster waiting outside. He was larger, with longer limbs. They were both level four, but it was a reasonable guess that Dan''s stats were higher across the board with his +5 to everything bonus. Finally, Dan''s senses were supremely acute and the sensory locus in the hallway behind the goblin was still active. And not only were Dan''s senses more acute, he had more of them - including, decisively, tactical precognition. He burst around the corner ducking low and thrust up hard, and the monster''s pounce impaled itself on his waiting spear. Monster Defeated, Goblin Hunter (lvl 4). Finally, the last enemy on the first floor had fallen and Dan had a moment of respite. He ducked back into the utility room and flipped the master circuit breaker switch, shutting power to the building back off. There were, by his count, nine goblins still upstairs and nine outside, but he''d dealt with the most dangerous of them. Of course, he was largely out of prepared tricks now, too. Hopefully he''d have a few minutes to get a new plan together while his enemies regrouped after the loss of their leaders and the failure of their initial attack. Maybe they''d just go away, back to wherever they came from. Somehow, he really doubted it. Let''s see.... he''d gained levels, and he had three new perks to choose from. Leave aside new aether abilities for the time being - minor heal was a fine use for a finite resource in aether pool. He had the terrible feeling that there were too many options, that free perk points were scarce and valuable resources that he couldn''t get back and he was being rushed into making bad decisions with them. But they wouldn''t do him any good if he was dead. He mentally looked through the list. The two he''d passed over in favor of Brain Cage, Pain Tolerance 1 (which seemed fairly self explanatory) and Healing Spring (restore 10% of max health on self, once a day) were still available, along with all the others he''d had as options at level one. But there were an array of new possibilities as well, some labeled as level two perks, some as level three, and some as level four. He assumed that you could use a perk point on any perk of equal or lower level. There was little time. Ok, he''d mentally allocate one perk to Pain Tolerance 1 and another to Healing Spring, but not actually spend the perk points until he was injured or in pain. It was a decision making shortcut, a way to choose without committing. Narrow things further. Look only at level four perks. Look only at defensive level four perks. One increases the skin''s resistance to piercing and cutting. One increases bone strength, density and healing. One forms some kind of shield that absorbs a single physical blow of any strength, once per day. A dozen more, none what he needs. Enhanced Evasion 1. This one improves the user''s ability to evade physical and some forms of directed energy attacks, and the effect scales with the user''s perception and agility. Sounds good. Dan took it, then left the utility room. The monsters on the floor above had given up trying to break through the door into the stairwell and went back outside. It was clear enough their quarry was not on the second floor. Now all eighteen surviving goblins had gathered together in an angry, chittering huddle a cautious distance outside the shattered front glass door. With the power turned back off, Dan doubted that they could see him lurking in the back of the hallway. He crept forward, braving the nauseating smell of recently fried goblin corpses, toward the body of the fallen shaman, and carefully removed the amulet around its neck. It was a simple looking thing to his eyes, a small blood red stone that hung in a woven leather cradle from a worn leather necklace. To his aether sense, it glowed warmly with latent energy. He used System Identify on it. Firestone Amulet (Aether Enchanted Item, Soulbound) Allows the soulbound user to cast Greater Fireball once every three minutes, up to a maximum of five times per twenty-four hours. Requires unlocked Aether Attunement attribute. Well then. He sneaked back to the far wall and looped the spoils of victory over his head. You have equipped an item that requires Soul Binding to activate. Bind this item for the duration of your life? Oh yes. Dan Martin was still in an utterly absurd situation, fighting for his life against a troop of extra-terrestrial goblins in some kind of bizarre RPG. In the last five minutes he had killed eleven possibly sapient beings, all in self defense, some in hand to hand combat. There was every chance he wouldn''t live through the next five minutes. He was in no way OK with any of this. But he''d also apparently just gotten a magic necklace that would let him launch fireballs. And there was a big horde of angry goblins, just out there, who had come to kill him while he was up in his office quietly minding his own business and doing his job on his own dang planet. He hadn''t asked for any of this. Part of him was furious - at the system, at the goblins, at the situation, at all of it. Part of him felt like a seven year old who just unwrapped the best squirt gun ever and would simply die if they could not immediately try it out. KKRRAAAAAAAAAAABBBOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM Monster Defeated, Common Goblin (lvl 1). Aether Gained Monster Defeated, Common Goblin (lvl 1). Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Goblin Warrior (lvl 3). Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Common Goblin (lvl 2). Aether Gained Monster Defeated, Common Goblin (lvl 2). Aether Gained Yep, it was a good thing he''d taken out that Goblin Shaman while it was distracted with the electricity trap. And that it couldn''t take a hit. Chapter 8 It might have seemed reckless to launch a fireball at a horde of eighteen bloodthirsty, angry monsters. It was, a bit. Dan had never used a Firestone Amulet, or seen a Greater Fireball. He had no idea of the relative elemental susceptibility of goblins to fire, or the effective range of a fireball. It would have been perfectly possible for him to sneak off while the goblins were still disoriented by the death of their leaders, give himself time for his aether pool to fill back up, time to think. There was, however, method in his madness. Beyond just really, really wanting to crisp some goblins. Which seemed pretty darn valid in its own right. First, the fight was going well so far and Dan had the tactical and psychological initiative. He was to his opponents an unknown adversary who had killed the strongest of them by largely unknown means involving water magic and physical combat. Immediately before he threw a giant ball of magic fire at them, they were scared, angry, and disorganized, but that state was not going to last. If he gave them time to resolve the leadership void and get themselves sorted out, they''d move on to being angry, organized, and vengeful. The only reason he''d succeeded so far is that he had managed to distract and isolate his opponents so he could fight them in small numbers while they were off balance. If they stuck together and attacked as a unit, he''d be in deep trouble if his last trap idea didn''t work. But if he could hit them with a new, powerful attack they didn''t know he had, something that had belonged to their most powerful troop mate, hopefully they''d be even more unsettled. Second, the glimpse a couple of seconds into the possible future that tactical precognition gave him when considering this idea looked very much like a thing he would like to see happen in real life. Third, he did have one more trap idea. It would be convenient if he could get the remaining enemies to follow him. More convenient yet if he could take a few of them out on the way. More convenient yet still if they broke a few of their spears on the walls trying to hit him when he could easily duck through a door they did not know was there. That last part certainly seemed to work. The furious surviving monsters surged as one after him. He had the time to launch another sling bullet (leaving him with only eight) at one of the group leaders before a sheet of crude spears flew down the wide hall, not so much aimed strikes as an indiscriminate volley. Dan sidestepped smoothly into the stairwell. Monster Defeated, Goblin Warrior (lvl 3). Aether Gained. Congratulations! You have reached Level 5 in Esper Class. 2 Points of Perception awarded. 1 free attribute point awarded. 1 free level five perk awarded. 1 free Aether Ability awarded. Aether Ability "Penetrating Sight" (R4, Esper) Awarded. Level 5 Bonus! +2 to Each Unlocked Attribute. You have reached 90 in Perception. Warning! Unlocking new sense "Perceive Power" while in combat may lead to dangerous disorientation. Unlock delayed. You may unlock immediately (not recommended) or at a time of your choice. Huh. "Penetrating Sight", presumably, was X-Ray vision. No time to think about that now. A dozen angry goblins chased like the tail on a kite. He opened the door to the fire escape up into the back parking lot and jammed the rubber door stop in to keep it open. He didn''t want the poor, murderous dears running after him to get lost or confused after all, and his super senses told him he had the time to spare. There was a short, steep stairwell where a wedge had been cut into the hill that led to the parking lot, and Dan sprinted up. When he reached the top, the driveway that wrapped around the west side of the building from the front up to the back was to his right, and the broad concrete stairway, framed with sturdy brick pillars, was to his left. To the left of that zig zagged the wheelchair ramp he used earlier that day. And in the middle of the parking lot sat his modified, full sized Ford van. He ran over, unlocked it, jumped into the drivers seat, locked the doors, stuck the key into the ignition and turned the engine on, ducked down, and waited. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Goblins, Dan was reasonably confident, had never seen a van. But it is a quirk of vehicle design that pretty much all of them end up looking, to a greater or lesser extent, kinda like they have a face. The headlights look like eyes. The grill looks like a mouth. The resemblance is vague, but it''s there. At any rate, the front of a van looks quite a bit more like a face than the back does. And so if you were a goblin and you saw your hated enemy in such a thing, how would you attack? Possibly from the side. If so, that was a problem, but he could just drive around to the front and regroup - no harm done. It should at least let him buy enough time to get through the three minute cool down on his new favorite fire throwing toy. But his guess was that they would try to attack from the back. So in his preparations he''d parked it with the front facing the fire escape exit. Let the goblins see its face. He watched from the Sensory Locus on the roof as the monsters streamed up and into the parking lot, then stood, puzzled, and stared at the rumbling metal beast. They''d seen it of course in their initial surveillance of the building''s perimeter, but it had been sleeping then, just one more bizarre object in a world unfamiliar to them. If they attacked head on, that would be perfect. If they didn''t attack at all, didn''t even realize he was in the van, that was fine too, if not a best case scenario. He could take his time, recharge the Firestone Amulet and his aether pool, unlock his new senses and get used to them, maybe even take a serious look through the list of available perks and find one or two he''d be happy to take. After all, that initial fireball salvo had gone better than he could have hoped, and he wasn''t outnumbered twenty-nine to one any longer, or even eighteen to one. It was only twelve to one. He wasn''t fighting against monsters who were higher level than him now either - he was level five, and the highest level surviving goblin was level three. If they tried to attack from the side, well that wasn''t great. But his best guess, and what he was hoping for, was that they''d try to attack from the back. After several seconds of hesitation, the monsters came to a decision and to a plan. The decision: They would fight the strange beast. The plan: Encirclement. Dan wondered why. Why they were here, why they were so driven to kill him, why they didn''t retreat once it became clear that he was dangerous. They were clever, they clearly had social structure and a form of intelligence, but based on their behavior they not only weren''t human, they weren''t even animal. They were something more vicious, unthinking, violent. Some strange type of creature that would rather die than miss a chance to kill. Animals killed for understandable reasons, with very rare cat and orca based exceptions. Dan could think of no way these goblins would benefit from killing him, no plausible motive they could have. Maybe that''s why the System calls them monsters. Or, he thought with a twinge of guilt, maybe the System put them up to it somehow. As he thought, the monsters spread around the van. Then they attacked. Goblins rushed the van three to a side, spears held rather than thrown. Dan, navigating by the sensory locus on the rooftop, floored it. ThumpThump. Thump. Monster Defeated, Goblin Scout (lvl 3). Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Common Goblin (lvl 1). Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Common Goblin (lvl 1). Aether Gained. Dan threw it into reverse, floored it again, still keeping his head ducked down below the windows. Thump. Thump. Monster Defeated, Goblin Warrior (lvl 3). Aether Gained. Wait, one "Monster Defeated" message? One of those "thumps" was still alive? He pulled forward and backed up again to put it out of its misery. Steel screeched as several stone spearheads stabbed into the sides of the van. Somehow they could tell he was in there (scent?), but apparently not precisely where he was at. Thump. Monster Defeated, Common Goblin (lvl 2). Aether Gained. The seven remaining goblins scattered, demoralized for the moment. They did not know what this thing was, how to fight it, what its weakness were, if it even had any. Hopefully, Dan thought, that was how they viewed not just the van but him as well. Chapter 9 Dan was safe, for now. He was crouched down in the driver''s seat of his van, in the back parking lot of the solid, brick building where he worked. That building and its immediate surroundings, Dan included, had been cut out of the world and dropped into an alternate reality where he had super powers, the physical world dissolved into impenetrable haze exactly fifty feet from the building in every direction but up, electricity and plumbing worked but telephones and internet did not, an RPG System spoke inside of his brain, and a troop of twenty-nine extra-terrestrial goblins had quite recently invaded with the single minded purpose to murder him. But he''d managed to eliminate twenty-two of them, leaving seven, and the remainder couldn''t figure out how to get through the fortress that was his van, so for now, Dan was safe. How should he deal with the remaining seven monsters? It could easily be fatal to get cocky and take them lightly. Without his system granted powers, any one of them would have been more than his match even if he was cured of his disability. What were his available weapons? The van. The Firestone Amulet. His sling, eight sling bullets. His utility knife, though it may be better to try kicking or punching than that. Wasp spray. There were various goblin weapons strewn across the office building battlefield if he could safely get to them, but he had no experience in their use. It was almost certainly safer to keep his distance if he could. Dan had no claws or needle teeth. There was his old plan, drive around to the front, get them to follow him to the fire escape stairwell, pick them off with sling bullets as they tried to climb the slippery stairs in the dark. That could work. But he had time now. Options. It was a wonderfully luxurious feeling that he couldn''t quite trust. Start with what would be reasonably safe and looked clearly useful: Unlock "Sense Life". As usual, the System responded to his focused will, and Dan felt the increasingly familiar rush of an entirely new sensation coursing through his mind. He could detect every bug in his van. There were more than he would have guessed, but fewer than he would have accepted as the upper bound of plausible. One of them, a small beetle, was weak, dying. Bugs, he supposed, did not live long lives. He had already known the precise position of each of the seven goblins. He could see them from the sensory locus on the roof, hear, smell, and echo-locate them, sense the heat of their bodies. Now Dan could also feel the life within them, as well as the life within himself. Interestingly, he could also now sense faint strains of aether trickling through the monsters. Cool. The goblins seemed to have settled on a waiting approach for the time being. They were a safe distance away, watching, vigilant. It made sense. If they couldn''t get to him while he was in the metal thing, then they had to wait and hope he eventually left it. Nothing came to mind as a way they could strengthen themselves or weaken him as both sides paused, so Dan was content to let the stand-off continue. Was his position secure enough to risk unlocking "Perceive Power"? He had gotten fairly accustomed to integrating new senses in a short time. Always was a fast learner. After a bit more thought, he decided to go for it. His opponents knew that the van was dangerous; they''d have reason to be careful, and would have no way of knowing he might be distracted. Dan unlocked "Perceive Power" and was filled with an immediate certainty that he himself was powerful. It was as clear and unambiguous as the sound of the engine thrumming a body''s length from him, or the glow of the moon in the sky as seen from his rooftop sensory locus. It would be difficult to describe the sensation in terms of ordinary human senses, were he asked to do so. He could, quite simply, perceive power within himself. It didn''t reveal the nature of his power, or how he might apply it, how it could help him, but nonetheless it was undeniably there. Good to know. Also interesting: Apparently, nothing else in his range of perception was powerful, or at least it didn''t meet whatever criteria his new sense used to adjudge such. The goblins were not. The Firestone Amulet was not. The van was not, though to Dan''s way of thinking a 275 horsepower engine was more powerful than most things. According to the system, he was more powerful than goblins or a full size van or anamulet that could magically launch massive fireballs that, now that he thought about it, did not follow his admittedly rudimentary understanding of the laws of nature. Though, given present circumstances, that was an odd thing to get hung up about right now. It was probably best to let that go, even if it would be useful to figure out exactly how these fireballs behaved later, even if only for tactical purposes. Wait, later? What exactly did he expect to happen later? What was he preparing for that might happen in this indeterminate "later"? Focus. This type of thinking was a trap. There were dangerous aliens with sharp teeth and sharp spears who were right now trying to murder him, and it was a safe bet they were focused on how to do so, not on what they''re going to eat for lunch tomorrow or other such navel gazing. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. A few more minutes passed as both sides waited, until Dan''s aether pool was full, his hard won Firestone Amulet was ready to go, and he had a plan. It wasn''t a particularly great plan, but it should be safe enough. If it didn''t work, he could regroup and try something else. First, he crept into the back of the van and grabbed his tire iron. Second, he put his free attribute point into agility. Not getting hit still seemed like an excellent idea. Then, he drove a deceptively obvious path toward the building''s front door. The goblins were afraid of the van - they''d kept their distance this whole time. So when it began to move, Dan figured that they would give chase, but stay far enough away that they felt safe in their ability to dart away if the metal thing attacked again. Right now he, inside the van, and the goblins were all in the back parking lot. If he drove to the front, hugged the building''s brick wall on the passenger side, then if his pursuers wanted to give chase, they would have to follow from behind. Even if they were somehow faster than he thought, they could not encircle him. They seemed to like that tactic. But they couldn''t risk getting between the van and the building. All of which meant he should be able to make it to the front door without getting dog piled by a pack of monsters wielding spears, daggers, clubs, claws, and teeth. That was what he had to avoid at all cost - as long as he could keep his distance, he was pretty confident he could continue to whittle them down little by little. Dan drove down and the goblins followed. Due to the position of his rooftop sensory locus, he did not have a line of sight to steer by. He had to poke his head up to see. This slightly offended him. With all his super powers of extra-sensory perception, he felt that it shouldn''t be necessary. But it was, so he did. Then he remembered the Aether Ability "Penetrating Sight". He was understandably distracted when it was mentioned in a flood of System messages as he was running from a pack of goblins. Still, he should have remembered it earlier, tried it out when there were a few minutes of peace. The monsters chased at a healthy distance, still bloodthirsty but clearly capable to some degree of risk assessment. They all carried spears, even those who had been torch bearers prior. Perhaps they had decided that torches were unreliable against a water wizard, perhaps with their numbers so reduced they didn''t think they could afford the luxury. Or maybe they were angry, leaderless, and all grabbed spears because they wanted to stab something. The van stopped in front of the shattered remnants of the front door. Dan put it in park, grabbed his tire iron, activated "Unerring Aim [self]", flowed over to the passenger side and out, then shut the door behind him and locked it with his key fob. It was remarkable how much increased attributes helped with random things like quickly getting from the driver''s seat out of the passenger''s side door of a van. It''s an awkward mechanical task that one doesn''t practice. The movements are weird, the space not designed to accommodate them. But Dan had slightly super human agility and vastly super human senses now. Echo-location gave him a 360 degree map of his surroundings in the van cabin. Tactical precognition guided micro adjustments of his motions; his dramatically improved sense of balance and of the position of his body in space granted him a ballet dancer''s grace and fluidity. And the most magical thing of all was that it was effortless. He did it without thinking. He wanted to get out of the van through that door, and just did. One of the monsters threw a spear as Dan ran into the building. He''d seen the attack coming before it left the goblin''s clawed hand, altered his path just slightly and it whizzed past. Maybe his new dodge perk had helped; it was simple enough to avoid that he couldn''t quite tell. Actually, that probably meant it had helped. A sprint took Dan from the entrance down the broad hall as a slowly spreading pool of water from the bathroom sinks splashed under his feet. He watched himself run toward the sensory locus he''d placed there, a slightly surreal experience, and realized that the situation was now an echo of not so many minutes prior. Goblins had rushed through that door and down this hallway to kill him. Now, he ran through it and down the hall and planned to kill the last of them. Just as Dan hoped, three angry green goblins raced through the door after him, and he invoked the power within his Firestone Amulet. He watched closely this time, straining his perception to its maximum to track the bolt of flame as it sped toward its target, expanding slowly, then burst into a sphere of fire on impact. As before, there was a roar of sound, but no concussive wave of force as in an explosion, no wash of intense heat. Monster Defeated, Goblin Warrior (lvl 3). Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Common Goblin (lvl 2). Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Common Goblin (lvl 1). Aether Gained. A fourth monster had narrowly avoided the radius of the fireball, and seemed unharmed as it continued its reckless charge. The fireball seemed to have a precisely delineated spherical area of effect, within which it dealt a uniform and fairly high amount of damage. Even inches outside of that range, it did nothing. How this worked, as with so many other things, he had no clue. As part of his mind took note of these fireball related phenomena, Dan dropped a sling bullet into its pouch, whirled it twice, and launched it into the raging monster''s head. It seemed small as it dropped to the ground a few feet short of where the dead goblin shaman lay still. Monster Defeated, Common Goblin (lvl 2). Aether Gained. There were only three goblins left, all level one, all still outside. Perhaps now with the courage of greater numbers fading fast and all their stronger brethren fallen, fear was beginning to win out over blood-lust. But they hadn''t been merciful when they''d come to murder him in a group of nearly thirty and he was level one, hiding alone in a utility closet. Daniel Martin hunted them down. Chapter 10 It began to rain as Dan stalked the last living goblin. It was a soft, cold rain and fell straight down from a flat band of cloud that hung gray and still in the night sky. There was no wind. Fourteen lead sling bullets rested in Dan''s belt bag, half of them misshapen now after he recovered them from the skulls of dead goblins. It had been grisly work for a few with needle nosed pliers and a clawed hammer, somehow more personal than killing the monsters from a distance had been. Up close and safely dead they seemed smaller, and fragile. He could not know what would happen when he killed the last of them and met the "Initial Test Success Condition" the first System message had notified him about. "Initial", however, did not generally mean "final", or "only". He had to assume that there were more tests to follow, and so that meant the last goblin lived until Dan was as ready as he could make himself for an unknown, violent future. His quarry hid within the tangle of a large bush planted on the east side of the building to soften and partially hide the sharp metal features of the industrial HVAC unit. Not a bad plan, really. Hide, wait in ambush, hope that Dan''s attention slipped and he could be taken unawares. But the little monster was alone now and hopelessly outmatched. Dan activated "Unerring Aim [self]" and slung a lead ovoid that traced a narrow path through the foliage and into the back of the creature''s head. Monster Defeated, Common Goblin (lvl 1). Aether Gained. Congratulations! Initial Test Passed. You have gained the title "Vanguard". +20% to level-directed Aether gain, +5 to all unlocked attributes, and perk "Universal Translator" gained. You have been assigned a Primary Test. Test Directive: Gain Power. Test Time Limit: Seven Years. Successful completion of Test will have rewards including return to moment of initial System integration in origin world and universe with retention of memory and System granted abilities. You have ten minutes to gather your belongings before mandatory orientation, preceding realm shift. You have reached 100 Perception. Sense "Sense Weakness" Unlocked. Dan didn''t need ten minutes. He was already prepared, so all that was left to do is walk over and retrieve the sling bullet from the dirt under the bush, then go back and wait in his van. It was an extreme long shot, but the van did belong to him. Maybe he could keep it? If nothing else, it was cold out now and the van was warm and dry. And there was enough time to enjoy the full first movement of Beethoven''s Moonlight Sonata in the van''s audio system, accented by the percussion of softly falling drops of rain against its body. It would be a long time before he could listen to Beethoven again. Seven years. Seven years before he could see his family, or return home. And that was a best case scenario. Dan sat in the driver''s seat with the back reclined to make room for the backpack that contained his travel emergency kit, a pair of pliers, and a hammer. He held the tire iron in his left hand, and wore the fur cloak from some unknown, unfortunate beast that he''d claimed as spoils of war from the Goblin Chieftain. Wherever he was going, it might be cold. The final, soft descending notes played and the song ended, followed by the remaining several seconds of the ten minute countdown. Those seconds took a very long time. Then he was gone, and then he was somewhere else. The floor was a flat, uniform, matte white. There were no walls, and the sky was white. In every direction but one there was nothing but endless white, as far as his enhanced eyes could see. Dan had gotten so used to a constant stream of sensory input that the sudden lack of things to sense felt weird and wrong. Directly in front of him was a minimalist glass desk with an office chair on each side. The chairs looked the kind of simple that is very expensive. The one nearest Dan was empty. The chair on the other side was filled with a bald, blue-skinned alien in a neatly tailored charcoal gray suit, a cream shirt, and a thin navy tie with a gold tie clip. It had a big head and big blue eyes, which smiled along with its mouth as it addressed him: "Hello Dan! Congratulations on passing your initial trial. I am one of the System Administrators assigned to monitor the trial set the System is running on your world. You can call me Sam. Please, take a seat. Tea?" Dan sat. System Identify told him nothing about the nature of this Sam, but in his Perceive Power and Sense Aether senses, Sam shined so brightly it was if the Sun itself sat across from him and had just offered a cup of tea. Dan flushed with co-mingled awe and wariness. "Um, thank you, but I''m not thirsty. Could you please tell me where I am and where I''m going?" Sam laughed. "Jumping right to the big questions I see. Or perhaps you mean it more narrowly. To answer most simply, this is your orientation. I am here to assist you in gaining a measure of psychological stability before your realm shift, which is just a way of saying a one-way ticket to a planet much like your own where you''ll have the chance to earn a ticket back home. The planet you are going to has a great deal in common with the fantasy genre of entertainment in the popular culture of your world, so it should be simple enough to find your feet if you keep your wits, equilibrium, and respect the locals." "Why is my world being tested?" Sam frowned, looked Dan in the eye. "It may be useful to think of us as multiversal ecologists. Your planet, because of your people, has potential, and we''ve been keeping an eye on you. A few times, we''ve had to intervene to protect you. Divert a wayward celestial body here, prevent a cataclysmic volcanic eruption there. But each intervention does cost resources, and ours, while vast, aren''t endless. It''s a big multiverse with a lot of worlds we''d like to save, but we cannot save all. Recently, we''ve too often had to save you, and your world, from yourselves, in increasingly expensive ways. Without our repeated intervention, you would have driven your own species to extinction a number of times over the last century. Frankly, we can''t keep saving you from you. We can connect you to the System. That could give you the tools you need to save yourselves. But your world is not ready, and the cost will be terrible. The tests are to see if your world has a realistic chance of surviving the aftermath. If it does not, you have my sincere condolences. Much as with organ transplants, we can not give something as rare and precious as a System connection to a patient who will die regardless." "So no pressure then."If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Sam smirked. "No, none at all. Though please do know that as the recipient of a Legendary Blessing, and a notably powerful one at that, you are one of your world''s brightest hopes, both for passing this test and for leading your world through the violent trauma of System Integration." "This trauma wouldn''t happen to be monster related would it?" "It would. The System will allow the humans of your world to gain a wide range of powers and abilities, but the source of all of them is aether. However, for reasons much speculated about but still not conclusively understood, there is a price to be paid for access to this power. Powerful monsters will spawn and be drawn irresistibly to concentrations of the species that use aether and attempt to eradicate them." "Umm... Why monsters?" "Theists believe the Source of Aether grants power only to those who prove themselves worthy through combat. Others believe all aether is stolen, all who so steal are parasites, and the monsters are an immune response. There are other theories. Myself, I don''t get overmuch concerned with such questions of philosophy." "How many of us did you take as test subjects?" "10,000." "How did we do?" "Quite well! The trials are ongoing, but we project a 43% success rate." "And the other 57% were slaughtered horribly by monsters, or will be?" "Sadly, yes. It is unfortunate, but we could not prevent their deaths without causing greater harm." Dan paused to collect his thoughts. "Why do you care about saving worlds that are obviously far beneath whatever your people are?" "A good question! As you suspect, it is not entirely a matter of altruism. Though that does play a larger part than you think. In this conversation, I will not lie to you, but I may give partial answers, or decline to answer, if in my judgment the full truth would be unwise. Here is a partial, but truthful, answer to your question. The System itself is fueled by the worlds to which it connects. I know you''re curious as to the exact mechanics, but without disrespect, they are beyond your ability to understand at present even in a simplified explanation. The more surviving, stable worlds we can connect to the System, the stronger the System grows, the more resources we have for the work that we do." "Did your people create the System?" "No. We are its inheritors and custodians. The System''s creators are long gone, to an unknown destination." "Are you actually a race of blue bi-pedal humanoids?" "No. You''re seeing this form because it is similar enough to your kind that you can relate to me, but different enough not to raise your suspicion that I am trying to appear human. It, and the personality I am presenting, is meant to put you at ease and make our conversation more productive." "That... actually makes quite a bit of sense. Is this a simulation? Was the goblin fight and the pocket dimension my office building was dropped into a simulation? What about the world I''m being sent to? Sam sighed and rubbed his forehead. It actually looked a bit like the facepalm meme outline. "That is an actively harmful question to ask. You believe this is a simulation. If I tell you that yes, it is, you will trust me more but take all of this less seriously. If I tell you all of this has taken place in physical reality, you will distrust my answer and everything else I have to say. Whether this is the virtual reality simulation of an artificial intelligence vastly beyond your comprehension, material reality, or Azathoth''s dream, in every way that matters this is real. What you do matters. If you die, you''re dead. But I will trust you and answer your question. This is a simulation. The pocket dimension where your Initial Trial was conducted was real. The world you will be taken to is real. Believe as you will." "Why be honest? Why not lie? If the purpose of this is to psychologically stabilize me, the truth can''t be optimal all of the time. Much of what you have told me is terrifying." "Because you are you. I have no moral compunctions against dishonesty in the right situation. However, you are a Chosen Esper with unusually high Perception for one of your level and access to the Sense Deceit aether ability. It, combined with how quickly and strongly you take offense at being mislead, makes you a bit of a delicate case to handle. There are countermeasures possible of course, but fewer and more problematic than you''d think. In this instance, it''s simply more practical to tell you the truth." Of course, if Sam were lying, would he still say that? Dan''s head hurt a little. "If I die, what happens? Will my family back home have a body to bury, or will I have been quite literally abducted by aliens?" "Your co-workers will come in to work in the morning to find you have tragically died of a massive stroke." "This really isn''t bolstering your claim that the world I''m going to is not a simulation." "Yet it truthfully is not." "Fair enough." There was a pause in the conversation as Dan gathered his thoughts. The question that came to mind did not seem like the question he should be asking, but it was there and better questions, for the moment, were not. "Can I keep my van?" "No, although that was a very good try! Items you attempted to bring that exist in your destination realm will be brought with you. Items with analogues in your destination realms will be substituted. Items that do not exist, whether because the technology has not been developed or because the materials are not present, will be left behind, but you will be compensated with an appropriate sum of local currency." As if it had been a cake that took time to bake, Dan''s mind presented him with a question he should have asked earlier. "I was given a quest to, quote, ''Gain Power''. What does that mean? What kind of power? How am I supposed to gain it? "That is vague intentionally. It is part of the test." Dan thought, a bit frustrated. He could press, but knew further attempts in that line of inquiry would be a waste of time. "Why is there a world similar to Earth''s pop culture fantasy genre?" "Because we''ve seeded your world with these concepts. Also, RPGs? That was us." "Figures." "You''re Welcome! Think of how lost you''d be without that background. It will meaningfully improve your survival chances. In fact, it already has. Sadly, this is a test, and as much as I wish we could, we can''t cheat to help you by giving all the answers ahead of time. I know you are just about to ask a litany of highly pertinent questions I won''t be able to answer, but our time is almost up." "You know what Sam? I appreciate it. Thank you. Will I see you again?" "Ordinarily, I would say no. However, you are a bit of a special case. You have unusual potential, which may lead you down paths that cross with mine. Call it a definite maybe on a future cup of tea." Chapter 11 Dan was in a forest, and the forest was beautiful. Massive coniferous trees towered above him, maybe one hundred eighty to two hundred feet at their crest. The air was crisp, impossibly fresh, and perfumed with the scent of pine. Smaller trees of different kinds were interspersed with the titans, as if children playing at their knees. The moment before, he had been speaking with a blue alien named Sam, who wore a business suit and sat at a glass desk in an endless white void as he offered Dan a cup of tea, then scrambled his guest''s settled beliefs of how the world worked. And what the world was. Or if the world was. Screw Sam. Or thank him? Whatever. Realm shift, new world that''s apparently Tolkien inspired, except that the whole fantasy genre is apparently a plant designed to prepare mankind for the weirdness to come. Probably thank Sam. The realm shift had a bit of a foreboding name, but the process had been completely instananeous. There was no feeling of motion, no sensation of the passage of time, no changes in his body such as vertigo or nausea. He was there, and now he was here. For a new world, it didn''t look that new. The sun shone brightly through the trees. Lovely little orange flowers shaped like violets bloomed in the shadows of thick trunks. White flowers with broad petals that spread out like arms waiting to hug somone clustered in well lit patches where the sunlight was less obstructed. Irridecent dragonflies, or creatures very similar to them, flit about purposefully. The only thing that hinted this could be somewhere other than Earth was that it was clearly spring. The day before it had been well into autumn. If he remembered right there weren''t many pine trees in the southern hemisphere. Though Dan was not going to be overly surprised if the next person he ran into greeted him with a warm "G''Day!" It was difficult to tell if the forest was truly much nicer than any other Dan had seen, or if his enhanced senses allowed him to appreciate this one in a way he never could have before. Even in an office building and its immediate surroundings, processing the constant, rushing flow of unfamiliar sensory data had been an intense experience. Now, out in the natural world (a natural world?), the wash of sight, sound, scent, thermal sense, sonar map and life was again almost overwhelming. Especially, the world exploded in his new ability to sense life. He could sense the plants, the moss, the trees, worm like creatures in the soil, small quick tree dwellers above. It was all just so achingly, indescribably, beautiful. Dan didn''t quite know how much time passed before he was able to pull the reigns on his wayward mind and redirect it to the the unusual task at hand. It was probably a few minutes. So then: He was in the woods in a world very similar to but that was probably not in fact Earth. Breathable air. Complex biome. No large animals in the immediate vicinity. Lush vegetation, probably quite a bit of water nearby, though he could not smell in what direction. It was cool, probably mid fifties, so hypothermia was not an immediate concern but could be an issue at night. The usual wilderness survival advice did not seem too helpful here. It was technically true that he was lost, but it would be equally true anywhere else on a planet that wasn''t Earth, though perhaps somewhere with other people - and he had to assume there were people, if only to preserve his sanity - would be an exception. It was both too late and too completely impossible for him to prepare ahead of time. No map, no compass (was there even a magnetic field?), not even the certainty that the sun rose in the east and fell in the west. It probably did, but at the moment he couldn''t remember the celestial mechanics that wrote that specific law of life of earth. So it wasn''t something he could count on wherever he was. No way to let someone know where he was, what route he was taking, when he planned to be back. There wasn''t going to be a rescue party sent to look for him. This was a much more primal, pure survival situation. On the other hand, in some ways he was not badly off. With a mental command, he reviewed his Status. Name: Daniel Martin Age: 29 Species: Human Class: Esper Level: 5 Health: 215/215 Aether Pool: 210/210 Health Regeneration: .082/minute Aether Regeneration: .35/second Attributes Strength: 24 Constitution: 23 This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Agility: 32 Perception: 104 Aether Attunement: 22 Available: 0 Skills Sling Marksmanship, Level 5 Perks Brain Cage Enhanced Evasion 1 Universal Translator (3 available) Aether Abilities Unerring Aim [self] (R5, Esper): Level 1 Sensory Locus (R5, Esper): Level 1 Peer Through Past [recent, item focus] (R3, Esper): Level 1 Minor Restore Health (R2, Restoration): Level 1 Minor Aether Bolt (R1, Evocation): Level 1 Detect Monster (R3, Esper): Level 1 Sense Deceit (R6, Esper): Level 1 Eagle Eye (R3, Esper): Level 1 Universal Compass (R9, Esper): Level 1 Penetrating Sight (R4, Esper): Level 1 (4 available) He was superhuman. On attributes alone, Dan was now more than twice as durable, twice as strong, and three times as agile as an average man without even considering his truly ludicrous senses. On top of that, he had an aether healing ability, superhuman regeneration, balance, reflexes, precognition, danger sense, an amulet that let him launch freaky but powerful fire balls, thermal sense, danger sense, life sense, power sense, system identify, echolocation, and now whatever sense weakness was. Throw an aether ability that gave him supernaturally perfect aim on the pile and minor aether bolt on that pile. Add all of it up, and he should be quite good at seeing danger''s approach and running away from it very fast. Dan paced languidly among wildflowers and underbrush and thought. Why was this place so incredibly similar to Earth? Could there possibly be a world where everything was so very much like his home? Plant life, animal life, climate, atmosphere, the sun in the sky, everything was just like the world Dan had known. But as Sam had said, it''s a big multiverse. Something told him that his puny human brain probably couldn''t begin to truly comprehend just how big a multiverse could be. So yes, absolutely, there could be a world like earth, but with wizards, dragons, elves, orcs, goblins, monsters, dungeons, and magic of old that was actually aether abilities all along, given a sufficiently large multiverse. There could be billions, trillions such worlds. Was he actually on Earth, or had Sam lied about that? It still didn''t make sense to him that a being of vast, incomprehensible power, which Sam held himself out to be, could possibly have trouble lying to Dan and getting away with it. It didn''t ring true; it was absurd on its face. On the other hand, it was obviously absurd - why, if a super intelligent being who clearly had a more than passing familiarity with human norms, brain function and psychology wanted to lie about why they couldn''t lie, would they make up a story that rang false to their audience? It didn''t make any sense. But then again, Sam would know that, so it did make sense. The spiraling levels of this analysis made Dan''s head hurt, reminded him of a scene from a movie. Clearly, he can not drink the tea in front of Sam. But he also can not drink the tea in front of him. Or maybe, just maybe, Dan was the chosen one, just like his R10 on a presumably one to ten rarity scale blessing labled him - a Chosen Esper, before whom even well dressed, blue skinned multidimensional functional gods dare not lie. He was the Preordained Hero and Protagonist of an epic tale, to be sung by bards across worlds and universes. Or maybe he was so incomprehensibly small, insignificant before the power that was Sam, that it didn''t matter whether he was lied to or not. But then why would Sam take the time to speak with him at all? Why was Sam messing with him, with Earth? Perhaps because he could be in a lot of places, doing a lot of things, at one time. As he sat and talked with Dan, Sam may have been taking care of a thousand other tasks in each of a million other universes. Dan still had no idea what Sam was, really, other than that he was definitively not a blue skinned humanoid. His best guess was some manner of obscenely advanced artificial intelligence, possibly even a subroutine or something of the System itself. Maybe Sam had simply told him what he needed to hear. A patient parent, managing a cranky, tired, toddler. I''m not sleepy yet, I don''t want to go to bed. That''s ok sweetheart, let''s play a game instead. We''ll both lay down, close our eyes, and hold very very still. Whoever makes a sound or moves first loses. In the end, it probably didn''t matter much. Focus on the basics of survival. Find water. Find food. Look for civilization. Keep alert for anyone or anything that might bring harm. If this was Earth, he''d make it to other people sooner or later. Dan was sure he could do that with the abilities he now had. But it was smarter to assume this really was a different world, a new realm, and he had to find his way. Keep his mental balance. Stay warm. Stay alive. Chapter 12 Stay warm. Stay alive. They were simple goals. How to achieve them was a little more complex. His thoughts jumbled and darted, refused to coalesce into any coherent order. There was too much to think about, too much to do. Find other people. Catalog his belongings - what remained unchanged, what was altered to match this world''s technology and resources, what was gone entirely, replaced with local currency. Find and analyze said currency. Take stock of food and water reserves. Carefully evaluate all reasonable options for both Aether Abilities and Perks. Experiment with those he already had - in particular, his R9 rated "Universal Compass". Mentally poke at the System to see if he could get more information than he had previously by asking slightly different questions. Test his body - how fast it could run, how high it could jump, how much it could lift, how sharply it could bend, how well it could climb. Find water. Find food, or potential food. Make or find find shelter. Come up with a plan. Dan paced aimlessly, but with time was able to corral his racing, wayward mind. Of the things he needed to do, what came first were tasks that gave him more information on his current situation, a clearer picture of his resources and his needs. Only after taking each action that offered information and did not look to ask too much time in return would it be logical to plan further. It was always better to know more before making decisions. Dan sat down, set aside the tire iron he had held in his left hand, and focused on what he carried and wore. His cotton undershirt and the long, compressive thermal underwear he wore to stimulate circulation in his legs felt unchanged, though the right leg of both his inner and outer pants were ripped and stained with dried blood from where the chieftain''s claws gouged him. There were no obvious changes to his leather jacket or business casual khaki pants, though blood soaked pants could be a problem if monsters could smell it from a distance. Apparently this world had discovered the zipper. His dress shoes were gone, replaced with soft-soled, unornamented leather moccasins. Synthetic leather and rubber soles were then evidently not a thing here. They fit well though, and were more comfortable than his old shoes had been. There was no way to know yet how durable they were. The watch on his left wrist was gone. His forest green wool sweater remained. His belt bag was now leather and used a draw string rather than a zipper, but its lead sling bullet cargo was intact. His wallet was gone. Why was his wallet gone? He had a brief moment of consternation before he remembered that his ID, paper money and credit cards were of no value now. Then he felt better, then he felt weird about that fact making him feel better. He didn''t belong in a place where his identity had no value. The wallet must have had alien materials or technology somewhere in it. He still had the goblin chieftain''s fur cloak tied around his neck. It too smelled of blood. At least it wasn''t his blood. He was quite over-dressed for the weather, and if the temperature rose with the sun he may need to watch for heat exhaustion. Even so, it had to be correct to carry every stitch of clothing he owned with him. There was so little he had now, so few resources, that it would be criminal to abandon any of them without compelling cause. His most valuable possession, the Firestone Amulet, still hung around his neck. It struck him that the entire initial trial was structured like the tutorial of a particularly difficult computer game. Here is your player character, and here are its stats. Here are your customization options. Here are some enemies for you to fight, that will be hard but not too hard if you''re smart and if you''re careful. Here are the rewards you get for leveling. Here is the one good item you get for beating the boss and finishing the tutorial. Now go have fun. It probably wasn''t a coincidence at all. Such games existed because incomprehensibly powerful extra-dimensional aliens made them, or caused them to be made, as training tools just for Dan and other lucky test subjects. He felt like a puppet on strings. It angered and frustrated him, but there was little he could do other than dance like a good puppet should. The incentives for playing along had been explained quite clearly after all, and they were compelling. So he would dance. His sling was almost unchanged, but the cord was now a very tough plant fiber with almost no stretch to it rather than the synthetic material it had been previously. That was fine; that was how slings were made traditionally. For all its manipulation and freakishness, he tentatively trusted the System to play fair. It wouldn''t stick him with a crappy version of one of the most ancient tools known. The leather cradle that held the stone or bullet was the same, worn in the same places and ways, as was the loop around the middle finger of his right hand. His sling was a little different, but it was still the sling his Grandpa gave him. Next up it was time to take a look at the backpack and its contents. First, the pack itself was now made of the same tough, woven plant fiber as the cord of his sling, light green rather than the black synthetic fabric of the original. The design was unchanged - it even still had zippers. It had many pockets and storage spaces, and the outermost contained the unaltered chef''s knife that had been in the break room and then part of a hastily improvised spear and then in a goblin chieftain''s neck. That knife, like Dan, had had a long day. His MREs were now four envelopes of the same material as the backpack that held dried meat, dried fruit, and nuts, none of which he recognized. Instead of four bottles of water he now had a large Bota bag, or wine skin, and it was full. In his preparations for whatever came after the last goblin''s death, Dan had carefully looked through his van. A butane lighter he had forgotten and found again in his search was missing, replaced with a flint and steel that were probably more reliable once he figured out how to use them. Bandages, trail mix, compression wrap bandage, hammer (technically stolen from the utility room, but ethically defensible given the extenuating circumstances) and utility knife were there. Ibuprofen, flash light, activated carbon drinking straw, and wasp spray were gone and not replaced. His rope now looked to be made of the same fibrous material as the bag and cord of his sling. The aluminum survival blanket had been replaced with one made of some type of animal hide. It seemed like it would be warm enough. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Finally, in a large pocket within the main chamber of the backpack there was an assortment of coins. Some were gold, some copper, some silver. They were each inscribed with a stylized dragon on one side, and glowed almost imperceptibly within his Aether sense. He had no frame of reference for how much each was worth other than that it represented the System''s idea of fair compensation for a low mileage, full sized van customized for handicap accessibility. Most of the coins were gold, and he decided to take that as a good sign. Overall, he was not in bad shape as far as supplies went. There had to be a fair bit of water for the forest to be so lush and verdant. He had warm clothes, blankets, various tools. If anything he may have been carrying too much. The heavy pack could tire him over a long hike. But every item he brought was there for a reason, and it wasn''t clear which of them could be safely jetisoned. Perhaps the hammer and tire iron weren''t needed. They were heavy. Still, with his enhanced physical abilities, it didn''t seem like it would be a problem to bring them anyway. His next project was to investigate the Aether Abilities he already had before considering whether to allocate some or all of his four free Aether Abilities now or save them for when he had more information - ideally in the form of intelligent advice from those who were used to life with the System. "Peer Through Past" he already knew - it was cheap to use and let him look through the immediate history of a specific inanimate item, roughly twenty-four hours when he''d used it on the safe with the gun he had to do without. It had shown him conclusively that no one opened the safe within that time, which, he supposed, was good to know, if not actually helpful in any way whatsoever. "Minor Restore Health" had rapidly restored 10 health at a cost of 40 aether. It presumably was better yet now that he had an extra seven points of Aether Attunement. "Unerring Aim" was cheap and awesome, as was "Sensory Locus". He only tried "Minor Aether Bolt", "Detect Monster", "Eagle Eye", "Sense Deceit", and "Penetrating Sight" once each, as part of his preparations before finishing off the last goblin. "Universal Compass" was wholly untested. His current situation seemed quite safe, at least in the very short term, and there was time for more careful, thoughtful testing. He decided to set aside "Sense Deceit", as it didn''t seem useful while alone in a forest. "Detect Monster" on the other hand, did. Dan tried it. The ability turned out to only cost 3 aether (probably because his Perception was so high now), and had a duration of 8 hours and 40 minutes. As far as how it worked, that was still unclear - there were no monsters within its range - but at that minimal of a cost, there was no reason to ever go without having it active. Back in the pocket dimension with him, his office building, and the last goblin, the small monster could be sort of felt and seen from any point in the area. It was a difficult sensation to describe, but it told him the location of the goblin and imparted a vague sense of its strength relative to himself. Dan used "Eagle Eye". For a cost of 2 aether, his already incredible range of vision extended significantly. The effect lasted for 52 minutes. This was another one that was so cheap and lasted so long that he decided to keep it going continuously. Really, it was just a mistake not to have used both of those immediately after the realm shift. Given how acute his senses were, it had not seemed urgent. But that was sloppy thinking. More information was always better, no matter how much you already had. Next he tried "Penetrating Sight". It was, just as he had hoped, comic book style X-Ray vision. The ability did seem to have limits. It could not look within living organisms, though it could see through them to whatever was on the other side. Each time his vision encountered an obstacle, he found that he could choose to look through it as if it were not there at all. Dan looked down at his chest and peered through the leather jacket to the sweater below, through the sweater to the polo shirt underneath it, through the polo shirt to his white undershirt, through that to his skin. Each time his vision forced through an obstruction there was a brief delay, no more than a second or two. This one lasted for 52 seconds at a cost of 5 aether. Honestly, it was really cool, even if the practical applications in his current environment were not immediately clear to him. Compared to his Esper school abilities, "Minor Aether Bolt" was horrifically expensive at 40 aether. Not that that was a surprise - he had a 1/3 penalty to the cost of non-Esper Aether Abilities, which were governed by Aether Attunement rather than Perception. It launched an invisible, incredibly fast bolt of aetherial energy. If it were not for Sense Aether, it might have seemed instantaneous. His test completely obliterated a flying bug with a wicked looking stinger. If nothing else, he had a first rate fly swatter. He couldn''t think of a good way to test or evaluate how it would do against bigger game, but somehow had the impression that he''d underestimated it, and that even accounting for the non-Esper penalty it was a more powerful attack than a bullet from his sling. Dan had intentionally saved the most intriguing for last. "Universal Compass" was rated R9. The ability description he was able to pull from the System said that it could attempt to find anyone or anything for which the user could form a clear mental conception, and that the easier the target was to locate the greater the chance of success. It was vague, but could describe something truly incredible. Even though he was terribly excited to try it, there was a good reason he had not already done so: It was an Esper ability that required 200 aether. Chapter 13 Dan sat and contemplated what an Esper class Aether Ability that cost essentially his entire aether pool to use might mean. He had a strong suspicion that his sky high Perception attribute reduced the aether cost of Esper abilities by exactly 90%. If that was right, then "Universal Compass" was not only R9 rarity. It had a staggering base cost of 2,000. There had so far been a distinct correlation between rarity rating and power within Esper abilities. "Detect Monster", "Peer Through Past", "Eagle Eye" and "Penetrating Sight" were all R3 or R4, and had not been particularly useful so far, though it was easy to imagine situations where they would be handy. On the other hand, the R5 abilities "Sensory Locus" and "Unerring Aim" were big reasons he was still alive. Sam had claimed that R6 "Sense Deceit" made Dan a problem in need of special handling. "Universal Compass" was R9 and cost 200 aether. It could be a genuine cheat, a kind of glitch in the System equivalent to rubbing a magic lamp and wishing for the genie to point you toward your heart''s desire. So long as that was his only wish, it would be granted anew every ten minutes. The description indicated a failure rate tied to how hidden or difficult to find the target was. Somehow, Dan didn''t think it would fail too often. Unless, perhaps, he got really creative with it. So, what should he wish to find? Three options came to mind. They were the nearest source of safe drinking water, the nearest people (as he would understand the term "people"), and the nearest monster. Water was the safest pick, and the most boring. Dan drank his fill of water and ate a quick meal before he finished off the last goblin in the trial, unsure when he''d have the chance to eat or drink again. He wasn''t thirsty yet, and had the skin bag full as a reserve. It would be undeniably useful to know the direction of the nearest monster, if only so he could avoid it if necessary. But what he really wanted to find was civilization. The sooner he got to other people, be they human, elf, halfling, or gnome, the sooner he could access the information he needed desperately - more than he needed food or water. The choice was made. It would leave him vulnerable for a bit, but with no threats in the area discernible by any of his senses, it felt safe enough to go down to fifteen aether. Most Aether Abilities he had tried could be executed almost instantly. "Sensory Locus" took longer. "Universal Compass" required nearly a full minute of focus. Everything about it - the rarity, the cost, the sustained will needed to use the ability - combined to make Dan feel like it was not meant for him, or at least not yet. It was like fire unwittingly stolen from the gods on high, and there just had to be some price to be paid for the crime. As soon as the activation finished, he felt what could only be described as a tug on his soul, pulling into the forest. It was a gentle force, easily ignored if he wished to, but ever present and steady. He did not know what form they might take, how far away they were, or what challenges lay between him and them, but Dan now knew exactly what direction would lead him to people. A weight he did not know he carried lifted from his shoulders. He recognized the weight as it left. It was fear, fear that he was irrevocably alone. Dan sat and listened to the sounds of the forest as his aether pool slowly replenished. A light breeze ruffled through leaves and pine needles, and flying bugs buzzed about. His "System Identify" sense stubbornly refused to give any information on the plants or small animals nearby. Perhaps if something wasn''t somehow directly touched by the System in the way monsters were, or he now was, the System simply had nothing to say about it. As his aether ticked steadily upwards, he perused the list of Aether Abilities available to him. One was in the school of Conjuration, and could summon a small amount of water from the elemental plane of water. This was of interest for two reasons: First, so long as it remained an option and he kept a spare Aether Ability point free in case it was needed, there was no cause to worry overmuch about finding a safe source of water. Second, there was an elemental plane of water. Presumably there were other elemental planes. Where was his portal to the elemental plane of coffee? There were numerous other Aether Abilities to choose from, though most seemed to be of limited value. Or perhaps the more powerful, higher rarity Esper abilities his class and blessing granted had left him spoiled or jaded. Fire Touch, Ice Touch, Minor Aether Shield, Cleanse, Enhance Vision [self], Enhance Hearing [self], Hunter''s Mark (it looked like the aether equivalent to a GPS tracker), Enhance Scent [self], Night Eye [self], Minor Fire Bolt, Minor Shock (a ranged lightning attack), and several more were available. Most looked either quite weak or quite situational. Some granted small, temporary boosts to one attribute or another. Others were perhaps quite useful in the hands of a normal aether user, but less so to an Esper. Not only did his blessing come packaged with a rather harsh penalty to non-Esper school abilities, it also keyed off of the Perception attribute rather than Aether Attunement, which seemed to govern every other school. So for non-Esper abilities, he had to make due with weakened abilities that cost extra to use from a smaller aether pool. His tentative plan was then to look for utilitarian options while focusing on Minor Aether Bolt as his main combat Aether Ability.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. To that end, he took Cleanse. According to its description it could be used to clean his body, clothing, and other belongings. This attracted him for a couple of reasons. One was simple hygiene. He didn''t have toilet paper, a toothbrush, spare clean clothes. If he was able to successfully hunt for food - which seemed pretty likely - he would need a way to clean his kitchen knife. If that were the only consideration, it would have been a frivolous decision. Universal Compass pointed the way toward some manner of civilization, and they would almost certainly have ways to keep themselves clean. While there was no way to know how long it would take to find other people, it should be doable, and using a free Aether Ability pick just to be more comfortable until then would be stupid. However, there was a more important issue. Dan stank of blood. If he had enhanced senses, it was a safe assumption that some predators and/or monsters did as well. Beyond just blood, there was also the question of other detectable odors that would grow stronger the longer he had to go without a way to keep clean. His super senses would do him little good if a monster that was both too strong to fight and too fast to outrun or evade got his scent. And that scenario seemed like the most likely way he could end up dead before making it to other people. Thirst would have been a similarly pressing concern, but if that became a desperate need he could always take the water summoning ability. Cleanse cost 26.67 aether (so a base cost of 20 plus the 1/3 penalty). It took two applications of the ability to completely remove the blood from his pants, but when they were done with their work Dan felt worlds better. The thin layer of grime and sweat that coated his skin during the nerve wracking initial trial lifted away and left a wonderful, fresh feeling in its wake. His newly superhuman sniffing skills informed him that any predators hunting by scent would have a much harder time finding him by smell now. As pleased as he was, a disquieting tickle in the back of his mind wondered whether the decision to take Cleanse was actually a good one or whether in truth he gave in to the subconscious pull of physical comfort when confronted with a sustained, unexpected crisis. Dan sat quietly until his aether pool was back up to roughly two thirds full, then removed his fur cloak, stood, stretched luxuriantly, and got ready to test what his new body could do. First, he ran. There was no convenient way to judge exact distances. When packing up he''d briefly considered grabbing a measuring tape, but rejected it as wholly nonessential. But that was fine; there was no real need for precision here. He was fast, very fast. More than that, true to the name of the attribute, Dan was agile. His footing was sure, his movements fluid and efficient. It didn''t take conscious effort to account for uneven terrain or underbrush, or to dodge low hanging whip like branches. He gathered himself and leaped up the trunk of a nearby tree, grabbed a hold of an outstretched branch. When he looked back down, his best estimate was that the ground was roughly three yards below his feet, or maybe a little less. He had just jumped at least eight feet straight into the air. Dan climbed the tree until the branches grew thin and swayed disconcertingly under his weight. He was breathing hard, could feel that he''d exerted himself, but it felt good, natural. The ground was maybe fifty feet below before Dan climbed back down. He let himself fall the final fifteen feet to test how well he could land now, trusting in his newfound regenerative powers and Minor Aether Heal to bail him out if he''d misjudged. They weren''t needed. A smooth, controlled roll brought him back to his feet. How did he know how to do that? Did attributes impact physical skill as well as raw ability? It would take more testing. He jogged back to where his belongs lay on the ground and carefully repacked each of them. With his backpack again resting on the fur cloak that covered his shoulders, his tire iron in his left and and his sling in his right, Dan strode down the path that pulled gently at his soul. There was a spring in his step. There were a lot of negatives to focus on, if he wanted to. They weren''t hard to find. But this new world was beautiful even if it was dangerous, and he was not only physically whole again, he had super powers. Dan''s curiosity drowned out his fears. Chapter 14 Dan wanted to sprint until his lungs ignited and his legs gave out, but imposed restraint on himself. He remembered Kipling''s description of "the steady wolf''s trot that eats up the long miles like fire", made that his aim. There was urgency to get to civilization. His ready supplies of food and of water were finite. But running to exhaustion could leave him weak and unprepared if danger were to stumble across his path. He made a point to keep Unerring Aim active at all times in addition to Eagle Eye and Detect Monster. Whenever his aether pool reached its maximum, Dan aimed a Minor Aether Bolt at a distant bug, leaf, or stone. Aether Abilities had levels, and all of his were currently level one. It was unclear how they advanced or what the benefits of such advancement may be, but aether pool was a renewable resource and there was no reason he could think of not to use it rather than let it sit idly at one hundred percent. The forest remained verdant and beautiful, but it was also rather uniform. Dan did not encounter any particularly large animals, though a thin, long bodied lizard with delicate purple feathered wings flew lazily past in the distance at one point. That did make it quite clear this planet was not Earth. There were birds. Notably, two that looked just like crows had followed him from shortly after the start of his trek. They kept their distance and showed no hostility, but it was still a bit disconcerting to be followed and scrutinized like that. But, he supposed, Corvids always were curious, and he was likely quite the novelty in these woods. After he ran a couple of hours, a pretty little creek snaked into his vision to the right. He quickly made his way there to investigate. The water was cold and flowed fast over a bed of gravel. There were thick clusters of clam or mussel like creatures with dull gray shells about the size of his palm. Tiny minnows darted nervously, their silvery bodies almost merging into the flash of water moving over stones. Dan walked downstream several minutes, not looking for anything in particular, just sensing what was there to be sensed. The creek widened into a pool at one point and in the pool there were larger fish. They were roughly eighteen to twenty inches long and appeared quite similar to trout. Stripes of light blue iridescent scales flickered down the length of their bodies and tapered to an end just before reaching their tails. Time to go fishing? Time to go fishing. Dan selected one, aimed a Minor Aether Bolt at its head, and fired. This was an experiment; he had not previously tried hitting an underwater target with Minor Aether Bolt and did not know how entering fluid would alter its trajectory. As it turned out, the bolt moved through water as easily as it did through air. It traveled faster than any of his senses save Sense Aether could track and obliterated the head of the unsuspecting fish. Which was when he realized he didn''t have a plan to get the thing out of the water. The current took the headless body and carried it in a twisting tumble down the pool until the stream narrowed again and it hit a submerged branch and stuck there. In the mean time, Dan had removed his backpack, fur cloak, jacket, sweater, shirt, and under shirt. He ran over and leaned out across the water, supporting his weight on his feet back on the shore and one hand that grabbed the thick wet branch that stuck out of the water. With his other hand he grabbed the fish. This worked, but in the future, his technique was going to need a lot of refinement. Dan made quick work of scaling, cleaning and filleting the headless alien trout thing with his stolen kitchen knife. Its flesh was light and firm, and honestly looked like it would be delicious if he could cook it up. He got together a pile of kindling and set to figuring out how to start a fire with a flint and steel. This took much, much longer than he''d have been willing to admit to anyone in the future. He truly hoped his grandfather never found out how much trouble it gave him. Dan was pretty sure his grandpa could have just looked at the pile of wood and have it obediently ignite. The first issue was that striking steel with flint creates lots of sparks, but if they have nothing to land on, all you have is sparks - no fire. So he needed something to hold that could take a spark and ignite. Ideally that would be like a dry leaf or something, but it was spring and most plant matter was, to a greater or lesser degree, wet. He finally found a few suitably dry leaves and was able to coax a spark that landed on one to a flame, but then the fire didn''t take when he tried to light his carefully selected pile of kindling. Tinder, he needed more tinder. By which he did not mean the dating site. After a fairly lengthy search, enough dry grass was found to make a suitable pile of tinder on his twig kindling on his larger branch firewood. Finally, he succeeded in making a fire. A flame of pride swelled in his chest, chased immediately by a flush of embarrassment at being so pleased with himself over an accomplishment that should be so simple. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Cooking the fish was, thankfully, a much simpler task. Just as he had hoped, it turned out to be absolutely delicious. Dan ate the fish fillets, then made a crude wooden spear from a long thin branch. Another alien trout lost its head, then found its body skewered and hauled back to land, where it was scaled, cleaned, filleted, roasted, and eaten. Dan drank as much water as he comfortably could before refilling his skin bag from the stream. There was of course a degree of risk that unfamiliar micro-organisms could make him sick, either from the fish or from the water, but it seemed unlikely for three reasons. The first was that he had an aether ability to restore health, which should assist with illness as well as injury, and incredible health regeneration, which again logically seemed like it would apply to his immune response as well. The second was quite simply that it would make no sense for the System to send him to a world where the air, water, or food would kill him. It would defeat the entire point of the exercise, and no matter how much power the System had, it had gone to at least some trouble to abduct him and drop him here. Based on Dan''s read of the System and its apparent motives, it wanted to kill him honestly, mauled by hideous alien monsters in a fair fight, not by alien diarrhea. The third was that he had a supernatural Danger Sense which had warned him against eating a few plants as he ran through the forest, and very strongly against eating or even touching one outwardly unremarkable mushroom, but had not had anything to say about the fish or the stream''s water. Dan finished his meal, cleansed himself and his knife, and set off down the path set by his Universal Compass. He kept his fish spear as a walking stick. While it''d be easy enough to make a replacement, it had taken a bit of time to find an appropriate branch, trim it, sharpen it to a triangular point. If there was no need to leave it behind, why do so? Besides, it was nice to have a walking stick, even if he didn''t need one. After several minutes of jogging, an unfamiliar creature appeared in the furthermost limits of his vision. In size, shape, and manner it looked very much like a deer, but it was quite clearly reptilian, with small, intricate scales arrayed in a camouflage pattern and an iguana''s head, but with deer ears. It had hooves. Dan moved velociraptors up several spots in his mental list of "monsters to keep an eye out for". A few minutes later, "Detect Monster" detected a monster. It was to his distant left and outside the range of any of his other senses, even with "Eagle Eye" and "Penetrating Sight" active. Should he run, or investigate? After a few moments of deliberation, Dan decided that it was very unlikely the unknown monster could sense him before he could get a look at it. With all the rudimentary stealth he could muster, the human crept through the woods toward the monster, "Penetrating Sight" pushing its way through trees and brush all the while, until finally he saw it. Coiled in the roots of a small tree was a small snake. It looked like a viper, and its pattern closely matched the rotting leaves of the forest floor. Dan used System Identify. Rootlurk Viper, lvl 4. Monster Type: Serpent Honestly, it didn''t seem that threatening. It was just a little snake. Even if he was willing to posit that its venom was instantly, unfailingly lethal, and that it could strike very fast, it seemed pretty easy to avoid, or kill from a distance. A level one Goblin, from everything he could tell, was a much more dangerous monster. Which worried him. What was he missing? Perhaps it was more durable than it looked, or much faster? Just in case he was missing something, Dan decided to use "Sense Deceit". He wasn''t sure what he was expecting to find, and found nothing. It shouldn''t be any trouble to circle around the snake. Or he could try to kill it. Well, his quest was to gain power, and that seemed directly connected to fighting monsters, and this did seem like an easier monster to fight than most. Dan crept around the snake in a wide arc, aiming for an unobstructed line of fire for Minor Aether Bolt. He had tested the ability quite a lot over the course of the day, and its range was vast, at least as far as he could see. The snake hid in the roots of a tree that stood between the human and the monster. Dan could see the snake due to "Penetrating Sight", but the viper, presumably, could not see him until he was in position to hit it. He wanted to stay as far away as possible, but the best he could do and still manage a clean shot turned out to be about two-hundred and fifty feet. His enhanced Agility and Perception, along with Tactical Precognition, helped a great deal in moving quietly, but it was not a skill Dan had much practice in, and at the last moment a broken twig alerted the viper. It turned its head toward him as he launched five Minor Aether Bolts at it in rapid succession. As it turned out, that was overkill. Monster Defeated, Rootlurk Viper (lvl 4). Aether Gained. Minor Aether Bolt, even in the weakened form available to him, was apparently a rather potent attack against low level monsters. Or at least against this low level monster. Which had been pretty darn unimpressive. On the other hand, it was clearly an ambush attacker, and Dan''s abilities made him the perfect counter to attackers who relied on stealth or guile. Perhaps the little snake was a deadly menace to normal people? Certainly, he would have walked right past it without his System bolstered senses. But how could it have hurt him unless he literally walked right past it? Was it fast enough to chase people down if they got reasonably close without practically stumbling on top of it? But how could it do that while remaining unnoticed? Were all venomous snakes of this world monsters, or just some? If only some, what set them apart? There was still far too much about this world, about monsters, about everything, that he did not know. Chapter 15 Dan walked over to retrieve the corpse of the Rootlurk Viper he killed and thought about Minor Aether Bolt. Five bolts were more than enough to kill a small monstrous snake. One was enough to kill a bug or blast a small plant. The bolts seemed to move in straight lines with no apparent drop due to gravity or deceleration with distance. They were invisible and very fast, but did not instantaneously teleport to their target. His best guess is that they were somewhere between an arrow and a bullet in speed, but it was tough to tell without a gun or a bow and arrow to test against. When they hit, the damage they dealt was, as with so much else recently, weird. It appeared to have a kinetic component, something like a less powerful shotgun slug. On the other hand, it seemed much more damaging to living targets than inert matter such as dirt, rocks, or fallen trees. Did it attack some sort of life force? It seemed to have an explosive component, but it was localized to the target rather than effecting the surrounding area. Most mysteriously, to a certain extent the bolts seemed to do what he wanted them to do, which was just really, really weird. When he wanted one to hit the head of a fish three feet below the surface of water without damaging the rest of its body, the bolt did. When he wanted them to utterly destroy a tiny viper, they did. When he wanted one to hit a tree like an arrow, with concentrated, penetrating force, it did. It was just... weird. He wished he had taken a shot or two at the lizard, dinosaur, deer thing. On the other hand, it wasn''t as if he could use more than a small portion of its meat, if any, even if he could kill it. His family were hunters, and had taught him a strong ethic of killing only what he would eat. The dinosaur deer thing was a complete unknown as well. It could be sentient, even sapient. For all he knew, it was more intelligent, more emotionally, socially and ethically complex than he was. Though his compass had not tugged him toward it. But that may just mean he was prejudiced against its form, and so would not recognize it as a person. After all, those were the terms he had set when using the ability. On the other other hand, System Identify hadn''t given him any information on the dino-deer, any more than it did on various bugs or fish, which might indicate it was just an animal. Or not. If it could give him valuable data, did his ethical qualms even matter? He had the weight of a world resting on his shoulders if Sam had spoken truth. If he failed the nebulous command to gain power, it was not only his future at risk, but that of Earth and all mankind. Dan was apparently one of those best equipped to succeed in passing these insane tests after all. So was it his responsibility to do everything possible to gain power, regardless of who or what he had to hurt in the process? Was it all a giant, confusing version of the philosophical trolley problem? He turned that bit of intellectual navel gazing over in his mind. There''s a trolley heading down the tracks, rumbling towards ten innocent people. They can''t get out of the way and it will kill them unless he stops it. They only way he can stop it is by diverting it down another track. But there is one innocent person down that track who will die if he does. Is it better to actively kill one person or passively allow ten to die? There were variations. What if it were ten against nine instead of ten against one? What if it were one hundred or one thousand against one? One million? What if he knew the one, if it was a friend or family member? Dan had never bothered to decide what right was on that question. It seemed like an absurd scenario. But with the dinosaur deer, in hindsight, he''d faced a bizarre variant of it, one that would likely repeat itself again and again over the next seven years, should he be fortunate enough to live that long. He could choose to harm another living being, and by so doing gain an unknown amount of power, which would improve his chances of meeting the unknown criteria of the System''s test by an unknown amount. Passing that test would improve humanity''s chances of winning a System connection by an unknown amount. That would improve humanity''s chances of long term survival by yet another unknown amount. It was all so speculative and nebulous that it would be easy to throw his metaphorical hands up and ignore it, but that was the lazy, cowardly way out of this moral dilemma. Dan had to choose. Alright then. Pretend the dino-deer was the moral equivalent of a person. Accept as given that killing it would give him a measure of power. He was no philosopher, had little interest or familiarity with the subject. But from what he remembered, Kantian thought would say not to kill the deer, even if it meant he died, even if mankind died with him. That felt wrong to him. Utilitarian ethics said kill it. That twisted his guts in an ugly knot, but analytically seemed more correct. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Yet it was still wrong. For one thing, there was no way he''d make that choice if it was not an alien reptilian deer but a little human girl playing in the woods. So his analysis was badly tainted by his own prejudice. But that wasn''t the biggest problem. The premise was wrong, the thought exercise too simple, flawed from the start. There was no such thing as a decision he could make in isolation. Each choice would change him. If he ruthlessly sought power, no matter the moral cost, then even if he succeeded and made it back to earth, he''d be a heartless, powerful, self righteous jerk convinced that the ends justified the means. Was that an acceptable outcome, or even useful to mankind? Maybe - after all, Stalin and Churchill were not exactly kind people, but had won the war. But there were other ways to power. Collaboration, cooperation, working together with others. They might be slower, more fragile at the start, but in the long term Dan believed they were more sustainable. Sam had warned him to treat the locals with respect. Also, from what Dan could gather, this whole strange thing was a species wide try-out to join a multi-verse spanning community of intelligent beings. Acting like a power obsessed, selfish, anti-social parasite seemed quite unwise when viewed through that lens. He would seek power. No doubt that would at times require difficult moral choices, but there was also power in ethics, in morality, that he was not willing to throw away. Dan had arrived at the base of the small tree where the viper''s corpse lay still several seconds prior. He examined what was left. It had been pretty while alive and it was small. That had made it seem harmless, even when it quite clearly had not been. Now it was very dead and rather mangled, and truly was harmless, barring something dumb like intentional self envenomation. Somehow the small, dead monster moved Dan and opened a gate he''d managed to keep closed until then. He mourned. He mourned for the snake, even though it had been a presumably vicious monster who would have happily killed him. He mourned for the old, old goblin shaman, for the young goblin he killed as it hid in a bush. He mourned for himself, for the life he''d left behind, his friendships, the family he might never see again. His mother''s warm smile and slightly greater than rational concern for his health. His dad''s distracted enthusiasm for his latest brilliant idea, or grandpa''s deeply felt history lessons. His favorite chair and a cup of lemonade while his choice of thousands of songs played softly in his headphones after a good day''s work. Theoretically, all of that was only seven years away. Realistically? It was already gone. Even if he succeeded and was returned to Earth, it would be with seven years of bizarre and completely inexplicable life experience along with a not just sound but superhuman body, on top of other superhuman abilities. Everything would change. It would not be the type of thing that could be hidden or explained away. And that was the best case scenario. Dan''s heart, lungs, and legs were stronger now than they had ever been, and he knew that he could run for hours. But a deeper part of him was so very tired. He shook it off as best he could and kept moving as Universal Compass directed. If his arrival had been in morning and this sun rose in the east, then its march across the sky had taken it west to late afternoon. Detect Monster''s eight hour and forty minute duration could be used as a clock to measure the length of a day if he started it exactly at sundown and kept track of how often he needed to re-use it and how much time it had left before the sun set again. The number of hours in a day just seemed like a useful thing to know. A more useful bit of knowledge would be how cold it got at night. He had warm clothes, a fur, and a blanket, but it would be good to know how elaborate of a shelter he needed to go along with them. He decided to jog for another couple of hours, then get to building. An hour and forty minutes later he came across a fallen titan of a tree laying broken in the forest. A number of small animals already had made homes in its carcass, but a careful examination using Dan''s wide array of senses showed none of them to be dangerous. He knew that in building a shelter, the bed is the most important element. Fortunately for him, his Agility gave him options normal earthlings would not have had. He climbed a nearby pine that was, while still large in its own right, much smaller than its giant elder cousins. After clambering out on a sturdy bough thirty feet up, he simply broke off smaller branches heavy with pine needles and dropped them to the forest floor below, then repeated the process on other boughs until he had enough both for a comfortable bed and to lean against the fallen tree to make a triangular shelter. He climbed back down and carefully arranged them until the roof looked stable and the bed looked comfy. Finally, he climbed a stout trunked tree a short distance from his shelter and tied his rope around a thick branch about thirty-seven feet up. If something Dan couldn''t fight or outrun came in the night, he wanted somewhere to escape up to. His work done, Dan sat in his shelter and ate dried rations from an envelope of alien plant fiber and drank water from a bag of alien animal skin. He separated two of the branches of the roof and watched the sun set, careful to mark the time with Detect Monster. Then he closed them, got out his blanket, lay down, and set himself to the task of sleep. Chapter 16 Dan woke to danger. He bolted upright, crashed through the pine branch roof of the shelter he made. The danger was a monster, and his danger sense broke through the shroud of his exhaustion and lifted him to an instant state of wakeful alertness. The thing was about seven hundred yards away, looked like an armored, three horned bear the size of an SUV, had large solid red eyes (how did those even work?) and it was closing fast. He quickly used System Identify. Bull Armor-Back Wrax, lvl 7. Monster Type: Wrax That wasn''t particularly helpful. It was headed straight for him, faster than he was, and built like a tank. How was he supposed to fight that? Did it even have weaknesses? In response to that mental question, Sense Weakness informed him that yes, it did. Nose. Eyes. Interior of mouth. That was it? It wasn''t much to work with. He could climb the tree where he''d left his rope hanging, but that seemed like a good way to die of thirst in a tree. Or die quicker if it could just knock the tree over, which seemed disturbingly plausible. What did he have to work with? Sling. Minor Aether Bolt. Firestone Amulet. Several seconds. He activated Unerring Aim, stepped clear of his shelter, and pushed his senses to their limits. Tactical Precognition showed an array of futures, all within the next few seconds. But every moment that passed irrevocably cut some of them off as the beast drew nearer and the situation subtly changed. After a short eternity, Dan acted. He fired three Minor Aether Bolts in immediate succession, one at each of the monster''s red eyes and one at its nose. Each struck within a heartbeat. The beast stumbled, covered its injured eyes with a massive paw, and bellowed in pain and anger. That bellow was what Dan counted on. It necessarily opened the monster''s mouth and exposed the unprotected throat within. Dan instantly launched a Greater Fireball from his Firestone Amulet and spent the rest of his aether pool on two more Minor Aether Bolts. They hit their soft mucosal target before the massive bull wrax could react, even by shutting its mouth. The monster let out a strange, strangled cough before resuming its charge. Dan did not wait to observe the results of his attack. He ran for his rope and climbed with an urgency close to panic. If the monster was like a bear, then it could stand on its hind legs. That would give it a reach of maybe eighteen to twenty feet. He''d shot every bullet he had at once, and hoped it was enough to slow it down, or in a best case scenario suffocate the thing. But if his attack hadn''t hurt it badly, his only chance was to have his feet at least twenty feet above the forest floor by the time it got to the tree. Waiting it out up on the stout branch seemed a much better plan with the monster injured and hopefully blind than if it were healthy. The rope was on the side of the tree opposite the wrax, and Dan also hoped that it would lose a bit of time and momentum circling around. It didn''t bother. The massive beast came at an all out sprint as it lowered its head and rammed the tree. The tree rattled and shook. Dan''s bones and teeth rattled and shook, and only his grip on the rope kept him from falling. For a moment he had a very real fear the thick trunk would uproot, tip, and crush him. It didn''t. Dan scrambled the rest of the way up to the bough above as the monster circled the tree and gathered itself for another charge. It had to be tracking him by hearing. Unless it wasn''t. It could be scent, even with a heavily damaged nose, or thermal sense, or electrical sense, or aether detection, or life sense, or any number of senses he hadn''t thought of or imagined. All the rules he thought he knew about how living creatures perceived their environments had to be thrown out now - he couldn''t afford assumptions. The thing seemed to know where he was and could tell when he moved. How it was doing so didn''t matter too much. It charged again and crashed heavily against the tree trunk. Dan was ready. He was on top of the big branch where he''d tied his rope and had his arms locked firmly around it. Wait - why was he able to climb ten to fifteen feet up a tree, onto a branch, and get a secure hold in the time it took for the wrax to take another charge? He was better at climbing now, but still not all that fast. Dan focused on his Life sense. The monster below was ponderously walking away, presumably to gather itself for yet another try at battering the tree down. It was weakening. Much was different in this world, but Dan had bet heavily that monsters still needed to breathe air, and that at least this one did so only through its nose and mouth. At first it had seemed like the wrax had eaten a greater fireball with little more than a bad aftertaste, but no, it was just tough enough to shrug off the effects temporarily. The monster charged, hit the tree again. It was still a powerful collision, but not nearly as bone rattling as the first had been. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! This time the monster lay down heavily and pulled its massive paws under its body, as if to rest. But it could not breathe. The Greater Fireball and Minor Aether Bolts had destroyed its mouth, nose, and airways, and the giant monster was slowly suffocating. Dan clung to his branch high above and waited, observing with all of his senses as the beast''s life slipped away. It truly was enormous, a heavily built six feet high at the shoulder and fifteen feet long. Chitinous black armor segments like a beetle''s wings protected most of its back, sides, and the fronts of its legs. Between the armor segments there was thick, coarse, very dark gray fur which filled out to a mane around the monster''s muscular neck. After it lay down, the wrax took fully twenty-two minutes to die. Either it was still able to get a little air, or its constitution was incredible. Possibly both. After his aether pool had completely refilled, Dan hit it with Minor Aether Bolts every two minutes, just to make sure it didn''t have an uninterrupted chance to heal, even if that didn''t seem realistically possible. But eventually it died. Monster Defeated, Bull Armor-Back Wrax (lvl 7). Aether Gained. Dan didn''t gain a level and felt quite cheated. Perhaps there was some sort of accelerated leveling speed at play during the initial trial or something? Or maybe you gained the same amount of aether from killing a level seven inchworm as from a level seven armored, horned bear that appeared to have the reasonable belief that it could batter down large trees? Whatever. He climbed down from the tree and examined the massive corpse in the light of the moons. There were three of them, though one was much bigger than the others. One small moon, to his amusement, was in fact blue. The wrax stank. It had a musk like a ferret or weasel, and also smelled of burned flesh from where it had unwittingly swallowed a fireball. Its horns were short and conical. Dan guessed they were made out of whatever rhino horns were, and wondered if they had commercial value in this world. Should he try to harvest them? Probably. First things first though. Examine the rest of the body. The paws were huge, and it was all Dan could do to pry one out from under the bulk of the body with his tire iron as a lever. That paw, the front left, was positioned such that only a portion of the body''s weight rested on it, and he doubted he could dislodge any of the other three. It had fixed, large, fairly sharp claws that were unsurprisingly much like a bear''s. They looked more than adequate for Dan smashing purposes. The more he looked at this monster, the more convinced he became that only two plans had had any chance of survival against it. The first was what he''d used to kill it. The second was to sprint like mad and hope that it would tire before its greater short distance speed overtook him. He might have to start sleeping in trees. Dan grimaced. It would be cold, and he would be utterly exposed to any aerial or climbing monsters or predators unless he was low enough that he could safely jump down. When he''d gone to sleep, Dan had felt pretty safe, confident in his plans, resources, and abilities. Now? Not so much. Not so much at all. That wrax could have killed any terrestrial predator on Earth with relative ease (discounting those that could escape or hide). If biology here worked anything like what it did back home, it probably needed around sixty to eighty pounds of meat a day. Maybe monsters could cheat on metabolic requirements somehow. Aether seemed to shrug off natural law as it pleased after all, and monsters were apparently all bound up with Aether and the System in a confusing tangle. Dan wondered who would have won in a fight, the dead wrax or the goblin troop. It was difficult to evaluate because he''d killed the shaman so quickly, but would probably have depended on how well the goblins were able to prepare. If they had traps, fortified positions, they might have had a pretty good chance? His musings were interrupted when a large, black bird appeared on a branch up and to his right. Dan was instantly on his guard, for three reasons. First, it was the first being or thing that had shown up on his Sense Power sense other than himself and Sam, and if his sense was accurate it way stronger than he was. Even the wrax had not met whatever criteria that sense used to define "Power". Second, when he even thought about attacking the bird his Danger Sense screamed at him. Third, none of his senses had detected it until this moment. Either it had instantly teleported (scary) or it could hide from all of his insanely over the top super senses (scarier). Dan used System Identify. Twilight Raven, lvl 14. Noble Beast. Noble Beast? Not a monster then, something else? The Twilight Raven cawed. Dan''s ears heard normal bird sound, but in his aether sense it was resonant, laden with meaning that was somehow immediately clear in his mind. Universal Translator presumably. "Good evening, friend Vanguard. Congratulations on your victory. I am First Ray of Dawn Through Wet Leaves, Lord of this wood. Welcome to this world. Who are you?" Chapter 17 Crap. Crap crap crap. Surprise interrogation by teleporting raven lord of unknown but considerable personal (and political?) power. How much trouble was Dan in? Less if he was honest and polite. Hopefully. "I am Daniel Martin, Lord First Ray of Dawn Through Wet Leaves. It is my honor to meet you. As you somehow know, I am a stranger to your world, and I sincerely apologize if I have unknowingly trespassed, poached, or in any way given offense." The raven somehow chuckled. "Please, be at ease. It is good you are cautious and show respect. Thank you. But you are a fledgling here. Each fledgling of my people, always and forever into the past, is an incorrigible brat. We are patient with the inexperienced. You did well with the wrax. How was your initial trial?" This was a disconcertingly well informed bird. At least the raven was at least outwardly courteous rather than hostile. Dan thought for a moment on how to answer. "It came as a shock. I will not say that my world is peaceful, but my part of it was, and I was not accustomed to violence. I still am not. It was night and I was alone in my place of work when I was connected to the System and given an hour to prepare for an attack by a troop of goblins. There were twenty-nine of them. They died and I lived." "You speak truly that you are not yet blooded in mind. You say ''they died'' as if rocks fell on them by miracle from the open sky and you did not kill them. It is a hard thing to learn to kill. It will be harder. I am sorry for you." Dan was quiet for a bit. He wasn''t sure how he''d expected this conversation to go, but one thing that had not been near the top of the list was... grief counseling? No, not exactly. The raven was smart. It knew humans, something of human psychology, knew about the Vanguard title and the trials taken to get it, knew that Dan had newly arrived in the woods. Crows followed him yesterday. Surveillance? Even now, the Lord Raven waited for him to collect his thoughts. Patient. Why? Because it didn''t want him to panic and lash out or run. And it wanted him to view it as benevolent and wise, a source of counsel. Which, to be fair, was working on both counts. "Thank you for your patience. You''re right, I am a fledgling here, although I was a man. I do not want to presume upon your time or good will, Lord First Ray of Dawn Through Wet Leaves, but I know very little of this world and how to make my way. May I ask a few questions?" "I am quite curious what you most want to know, Daniel Martin. Ask three." Three questions. Interesting. It was a nakedly arbitrary limit to the information the raven would offer for free. It wanted to test him then? Or also as a free sample of goods for sale before offering further information to be bartered? But what could it want from Dan? And if these questions were a test, what was it looking for? He was getting very tired of being tested. He didn''t know what to ask because he didn''t even know enough to know what he didn''t know. Wait, was that an answer in itself? "First question: What general course of action would give me the best chance of staying alive, in good health, and at least relatively free two weeks from now?" "A good question. I do not know you well enough to give a good answer, so I will give one that may be poor. You are welcome to stay as a guest in my wood while you find your wings. If you do, kill only monsters and what you eat, and none of feathered kind except in defense. I believe you will be fairly safe, and you will be free. Or, if you wish I will escort you to the city of Weaverton. It will be a journey of four days. You will be protected in the city by those of your kind, but you may be less free."This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. "Thank you." Wow. That was way better news than he''d hoped to hear, and quite a bit more generous of an offer than he expected from First Ray. There was a city, with "his kind". That probably at least meant humanoid and sapient. If so? He''d take it and be happy. People. Not that First Ray wasn''t a person, but it was, well, also a bird. Second question... hmm. "Second question: Based on what you know of me and this world, if I were to die in the next two weeks, what would be the most likely causes of my death, and if it doesn''t count as my third question, how can I avoid them?" "Another good question. You are a member of a System integrated race, and monsters will hunt you. That is the danger you will face for the next two weeks and your life. It is rare for one of a System race to die young other than to a monster''s claw. To avoid those claws, learn to use well the tools the System has given you and make friends." OK, maybe he''d wasted that question a bit. That was exactly what he''d already thought. Still, it was good to rule out "the death mist of the third moon" or other thankfully nonexistent perils he was completely unprepared for. One question left. Many things that would be good to know. Need to remember that the raven is not in fact an all-knowing oracle, though it was clearly well informed. What to ask? "Third Question: Lord First Ray of Dawn Through Wet Leaves, what is your interest in me?" "Your first two questions were good. Your third is interesting. It might be perceptive. I believe you are an Esper. If that is so, there is potential for a partnership between us, to the great benefit of both. That is my interest in you. Also, Vanguards tend to flash across the world like drunk lightning bolts. That is always fun to watch, and thus interesting." Uh... well then. Think about the last bit first, as that seems easier to process. It makes sense. Vanguards get dropped into foreign worlds with shattered conceptions of reality, Atlas like burdens on their shoulders, minimal hope of seeing home again, recent traumatic violence, more violence stretching into the foreseeable future, and powers that they aren''t used to and likely can''t control well. Logically, many would have a pretty chaotic impact on whatever world they ended up in. Drunk lightning bolts indeed. That was a possible fate to be aware of, and work hard to avoid. Also: Dan somehow had the feeling that if Twilight Ravens had a god, it was of the Loki or Monkey King variety. That was all a distraction though. Partnership? What did that mean? Well, one way to find out. "Yes, I am an Esper. What type of potential partnership?" "First, do you have the Aether Ability ''Sense Deceit''? If you do, you should use it. It is wise to use in any conversation with one you do not trust implicitly." Dan was chagrined. He should have thought of that. He quickly activated it. Interesting that the raven chose now to bring that ability up. Though maybe that was just because it was the first it had confirmation that Dan was an Esper. "I do, thank you for reminding me. It is active now." "Let me be clear that I do not offer this partnership yet. It is a thing that may be if we both choose it. There are good reasons why we each could choose it. There are good reasons why I could reject it." "I understand. So there are not good reasons why I would reject the partnership?" "No, there are not. You are young, ignorant, weak, and alone. You have the greater need." That was... all accurate, actually. Young was iffy, but in the context of this world certainly plausible. Ignorant, weak and alone? Those were just facts. The bird was right. Dan needed whatever help he could get. "You aren''t wrong. May I ask a favor, Lord First Ray of Dawn Through Wet Leaves? This is the first time I have used ''Sense Deceit''. Could you please say something untrue so I can see how it works?" The raven chuckled. Its iridescent black feathers ruffled out as it did. "Of course. I did not watch over you as you slept. I would have allowed you to come to harm if you proved unable to defend yourself against the wrax. I need you as much as you need me." Dan knew that each sentence was wrong. They tasted acrid in his brain. Which was a really weird sensation. You said that you needed me as much as I needed you. Sense Deceit showed that that was a lie. If he ever made it back to Earth, he had definite prospects as an ongoing gimmick on a daytime TV talk show. "Thank you. So I know that you believe I need this partnership more than you do, and everything I can think of suggests you are right. You are not committing to it yet, whatever it is. It can be of significant benefit to both of us. Please, what type of partnership is it?" "The meaningful answer is long. You are young, and the day has bled away your patience, and so you want the short answer. I understand. The partnership is an Aether Contract that would bind us together with me as your Familiar." Wait... seriously? The benevolently condescending, extremely powerful forest Lord Twilight Raven wanted to be his familiar? Dan decided to give up on the concept of surprise. Chapter 18 Dan stood and stared dumbly at the twilight raven. He opened his mouth. He closed his mouth. It probably looked a bit like a fish trying to breathe air. Finally, words happened. "I, uh, am honored that you would consider such a partnership. We do not know one another well. On my world, I was a scholar of contracts. I have little patience for some things, it is true, especially right now, but I have great interest in and great patience for learning about the contract you just mentioned. Thank you for the short answer. Would you please give me the long and detailed answer as to what type of partnership we are discussing?" The bird hopped on its branch and cocked its head. "Really? A scholar of contracts? Truly, the System works in mysterious ways. That may well be a reason why you were gifted the rare and powerful class of Esper, then dropped in my humble wood upon passing your initial trial. But enough of an old bird''s musings. A level five Esper with Sense Aether unlocked has access to the perk ''Aether Contractor''. That opens as an option the Aether Ability ''Contract Familiar''. Aether Contracts are binding agreements enforced by the System. You don''t want to break them. That goes badly. Familiar Contracts are a branch on the Aether Contract tree. They bind a master of a System integrated race, such as you, with another being such as a noble beast like me as a familiar. They are, sadly, unequal from their root, and can not grow into fair shapes. A master will always remain a master. But those formed through the ''Contract Familiar'' Aether Ability can come much closer to just than those formed by crueler methods. We may negotiate terms, and both must agree. Neither can be forced into the master/familiar bond. I will speak now of why I would consider such a thing, as you will have trouble listening to any other words until I do. For those of System races like you and for noble beasts like me, there is a wall at level twenty. For each wall, there is a stone to break it. My kind forms the stone to break our wall when our Perception reaches 100. We gain our first level when we hatch, then another with each twenty years of life until stopped by the wall. With each level, we gain three Perception. The only reliable method my kind has found to get the last 40 points of Perception is by submitting to an Esper as familiar. There is a perk available at level 18 to Espers that grants their familiars, permanently, half of the Esper''s highest attribute. So long as that attribute is Perception, and is at least 80, we can break our wall. More than most beings, twilight ravens have need to break their walls. If we were to form a partnership, I would insist, among other conditions, that the Aether Contract require you to select that perk when you reach level 18, and that you ensure Perception is both your highest attribute and at least 80 at that time. Neither of those conditions should be a challenge for an Esper. It is why Espers and twilight ravens get along so very well. Do you understand so far, Daniel Martin?" Dan looked at the bird. It was large for a raven, with beautiful black feathers, and looked to be in perfect health, but also just looked like a bird. The bird being more powerful, older and smarter than him was taking some getting used to. That was a moment''s thought and did not distract him from the matter at hand, which he felt he understood quite well. Which left him quite confused. "I believe so, yes. In order to advance past level twenty, you need to become the familiar of an Esper, and we are a rather rare class. For that to happen on mutually agreeable terms, it must be through an Aether Contract accessible by a Perk and an Aether ability I can take. In other words, my realm shift dropped me into the domain of a powerful noble beast that happens to need exactly me as a potential master and has reason to watch over and protect me. Doesn''t that seem odd?" The raven cocked its head twice, a strange mechanical movement like the tick of second hand on a clock. That seemed to be one of its primary expressions of body language. "Somewhat, yes. As I said before, it may be linked to your prior study of contracts. I suspect the System at times takes notice of such things. You are an Esper, and so must have been given a Blessing by the System. What was it, and what was its rarity?"If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. "Chosen Esper, R10 Legendary Rarity." Lord First Ray of Dawn Through Wet Leaves cocked his head twice to the left, four times to the right, twice more to the left, then hopped in place three times. It seemed that even sapient, centuries old birds could not think while standing still. It was undeniably cute. Dan was uncomfortable in recognizing it as such, because the reality was that the alien before him was an enormously powerful existence, the strongest being he''d ever been in physical proximity with (Sam admitted the orientation took place in a simulation). And it was an adorable hopping bird. He wanted to pet its feathers. That impulse was not at all difficult to restrain, but it was there, and irked him. He had no reason, none at all, to feel superior to this creature, not even in something so minor as finding them cute. The raven spoke. "Truly? A Chosen with a R10 Blessing? By the three moons! If I did not know you believed, I would be certain you lied. There have been other Chosen in this world, all remarkable, all powerful, but no Espers that I know of. I also do not know of any others who have received R10 Blessings. I have lived long and learned much, but there are many who have lived longer and learned more. I wish I knew more of the System. Here, though, is what I believe. Many times the System''s words are unclear, or confuse. Many other times its words are plain. I believe Chosen and Blessing are plain words. The System chose and blessed you. I do not know why, or to what end. But I think it, or those who are its caretakers, keep their eyes on the ones it chooses and blesses. It will not intervene and save you if bad choices or chance endanger you. I think it may guide you to situations where there is opportunity for you to find if you are clever, if you are bold, if you are capable. Tell me, the ball of fire you used to slay the wrax. It came from an item you earned in your initial trial, yes? What manner of goblin wore it before you?" "Yes, System Identify calls it a Firestone Amulet. It belonged to a level 10 Goblin Shaman." "An Aether user of some kind?" "Yes." "And there was a Chieftain I assume? Did it have any unusual abilities?" "Yes, it could use aether as an aura that enhanced its physical abilities." "And many of these goblins were of levels greater than one?" "Yes." "The System gave you a very, very powerful Blessing. Then it tested you with a very, very difficult trial. Then it rewarded you with an item that is more rare and powerful than you know. I suspect that portends a pattern. It would be wise, by the way, not to shout from tree tops that you have that amulet once you reach others of your kind. Then the System shifted you to this world and into my wood, and your path led you to make your camp in the hunting ground of a bull wrax. You defended yourself capably and impressed me. That gave me cause to consider you seriously as a master although you are but a fledgling in this world. Do you see the pattern I speak of?" "Maybe? I do not know if this world values mathematics as much as mine does, but where I come from there is a thing called sample size that is considered to be pretty important. Patterns taken from large sample sizes are thought to be reliable, and those taken from small sample sizes are viewed as untrustworthy. Two is a very small sample size." "Ah, if only life were more certain, my new friend. Though I am a thinking being, I am also a creature of instinct, and years have taught me to trust my instincts no less than I trust my reason. My instinct tells me that the System takes great interest in you, Daniel Martin. So much so that it over-rides the greatest cause I, and those of my kind, have to shy from the familiar bond. We are of feathered kind, born to the open sky, and it is against our nature to hop into a cage, even one freely chosen, of our design, even when there is great gain. I do not believe there are gods, as some beings do, but I do believe a power greater than either of us arranged our meeting. There can be only one reason. We can discuss the details, but I do not believe they will be onerous or difficult to agree upon. I offer the Familiar Contract if you will select the needed Perk and Aether Ability to form it." "I am deeply honored, Lord First Ray of Dawn Through Wet Leaves. It seems quite clear to me from our conversation so far that I have much to gain from this partnership, and I agree that it does not seem plausible that our meeting is accidental. However, my kind has a principle of decision making that it is unwise to make important decisions in haste. I don''t feel that I know enough about you, or about Aether Contracts, or Familiars, or the System in general yet to feel comfortable in making such a weighty choice so quickly. There is another decision making concept called information asymmetry. That describes a scenario between two parties where one has greater understanding of or more access to information about the situation than the other. These situations are to the great disadvantage of the side with less information, especially when the situation is a negotiation. In our situation, you have both greater information and greater understanding. So everything I have been taught and believe about how best to make wise decisions tells me that I should not agree to anything yet, no matter how much I want to, how favorable it may seem to be, or how generous of an offer it may be. Not until I understand everything more clearly." The raven chuckled. "I am pleased to hear that. Do these thoughts come from your study of contracts? In any case, the will of the System aside, I have little interest in tying my fate to one who is incautious or a fool. My kind have little regard for either. The moons will yet play for many hours before the sun wakes, and I have no tasks more urgent than continuing our conversation. Do you?" Dan did not. Chapter 19 Dan sat on a large tree branch and watched the sun set on his second day on this earth. It was, as his home had been, called by its residents "Earth". From a linguistic standpoint this was logical. The word "earth" was not just a unique identifier for the third planet from the sun in one solar system. It referred to dirt or soil as a substance, to solid ground more generally, or to the concept of a world. So it made perfect sense that whatever planet you were on, a properly functioning Universal Translator would render the local word for its name as "Earth." But it did make it a bit difficult to think about his earth and this earth. Thoughts are made of words. When there were two things he was trying to separate and compare in his mind and one word for both, it added a slight friction, grains of sand in the machinery of his thoughts. No matter. It was a small thing. It had been a long, tiring, interesting and very fruitful day. It was in his nature at the end of days like this to become easily irritated at small things that muddied up his thoughts. He sat alone. Ray and Dan were now on an informal, first name basis. This was a brick of progress among many in what they had built together over the night and the day. Ray had left to stretch his wings for an hour and give Dan solitude, time to think, reflect, and be alone before committing to a life altering decision. In some ways it felt a bit like he was about to marry an alien bird he''d just met, though that view of things held up only through very narrow windows of perspective. It would be more accurate to think of it as an extraordinarily close business partnership, though that analogue had its flaws as well. The truth was there was no relationship on earth - his earth - that closely correlated to the master/familiar bond he would soon form with First Ray of Dawn Through Wet Leaves. It was mercenary. It was also intimate. It was mutually self interested. It would only succeed if both parties prioritized the interests and well being of the other. The cold truth of it was that all the details, uncomfortable as they might be, didn''t truly matter. He was alone in a dangerous, unfamiliar world and in desperate need of knowledge, power, and allies. This opportunity offered all three at once. There was risk of course. There was always risk in any committal decision. But what many people failed to adequately account for, and what Dan strove to consciously fight against, was the cognitive bias toward doing nothing. People would stick to the status quo, even when in the long run that was the most dangerous choice they could make. He was not going to make that mistake here. It might not end up working out, but he wasn''t going to shrink back from a decision he''d arrived at based on careful thought and a lot of evidence out of blind fear of the unknown. It would be good to have a friend. Or something like a friend. An associate with strong mutual interests who hopefully would be become a genuine friend in time, but until then would be bound to him in a quasi servant to almost slave like subordination? This was all going to take a while to emotionally unpack. In the meantime, Dan figured that as long as he just treated Ray with respect, as an emotionally complex, intelligent being - as a person - the rest should work out. This was a little quicker that he''d have preferred to make such an important decision, just on principle. It wasn''t wise to rush important decisions. But apparently there was in fact a soft deadline, which by this point Dan almost expected. Ray knew of an incredibly rare flower, infused with Aether, which bloomed only for a few hours on one night each year in a specific meadow, which happened to be a three hour run away. That one night was of course tonight. The rare flower would grant a permanent boost to the Constitution attribute. Ray was quite understandably only willing to guide Dan to the magic meadow where the magic flower grew on the magic night if they had the whole familiar thing finalized in time. All of this was some fairy tale bovine excrement. It also, in the context of how the last two days had gone and the System had operated so far, fit the pattern. Dan was a Vanguard, had gained the title after passing his Initial Trial. What is a Vanguard? He was slightly unclear on the exact definition, and wished he could Google it, but as far as he knew it was basically the spearhead of an advancing army. Which fit with what Sam had told him of the function Dan and others who passed their Initial Trials held. If they made it back to their Earth, then they would be the spearhead who would help prepare and stabilize the rest of mankind for System integration. Or, in other words, they''d help everyone get ready to get super powers and fight a bunch of monsters. And how did all of this relate to the magic flower and the pattern of the last two days? He had consistently been given some time to prepare and make decisions, but not much. And there had consistently been significant power to be gained through making good decisions. Or at least at it seemed like those he he did in fact make had worked out. Dan prided himself on his ability to look at complex fact sets and distill them down to underlying patterns. It was a big reason he was good at his job, a talent that many underestimated when it came to legal research. Looking at all of the facts here, what was the pattern? The System was testing his decision making in extremely unfamiliar, high pressure situations with finite time to think and high stakes. Given what he knew, why would it do that? Because System Integration would confront mankind with a whole lot of similar decisions, and it wanted to test how those it had judged to be among the most capable - the 10% most likely to survive the Initial Trial out of the top 1% in intelligence if he remembered correctly, which he was pretty sure that he did - handled them. Some of those decisions likely would be as blindingly obvious as "do I make friends with this person that can help me a whole lot and then go eat the flower that will make me stronger, or do I go ''nah''?" Either way, the System had to know. If his Earth was peopled with a species so dumb that even their best and brightest would decide not to do the obviously correct thing that would help them and make them stronger, that was important data.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. In other words, this wasn''t a game, even though it seemed to heavily mirror RPGs. It didn''t need to have a balanced power curve. This whole thing was a test. So having thoroughly overthought this, Dan resolved not to overthink this. He would conclude the Familiar Contract with Ray and go eat a magic flower. The twilight raven glided to a graceful stop next to Dan on the branch. Most of their lengthy conversation had taken place in a tree. Ray felt more comfortable there and Dan had no objections. It was time. Familiar Contract Offered. Awaiting Response. Contract Accepted. Congratulations! You have gained a Familiar, First Ray of Dawn Through Wet Leaves (Twilight Raven, lvl 14). +5 bonus to Aether Attunement gained. Title Gained: Aether Contractor (+1% to Level Directed Aether Gain). You may select an available Familiar Linked Aether Ability. You may delay this selection. Once made, this choice cannot be changed. The preliminary research, analysis, and negotiation were long and mentally taxing. Actually executing the contract? That turned out to be pretty simple. As with most other things, the System understood intent clearly. And now it was done and Ray was his familiar. Everything as expected. Ray''s highest attribute was a two-way tie between Perception and Aether Attunement, and apparently when you gained a Familiar who was a Noble Beast of level 12 or higher you got a +5 bonus based on their best attribute. In this case, the tiebreaker went to boosting Dan''s lower stat of the two. Familiar Linked Aether Abilities turned out to be one of the biggest advantages to getting a familiar who could use Aether Abilities. Out of all the Aether Abilities your familiar had access to, you could pick one and use it as if you were your familiar. Which meant that it would use the same percentage of your aether pool as it did of your familiar''s and have the same effect as if your familiar used it. Dan and Ray had already talked about this too, and it wasn''t going to be a hard decision. Dark Bolt was the clear winner. It was the primary offensive ability of Twilight Ravens, and that was Dan''s greatest weakness that could easily be remedied by one Aether Ability. It sounded pretty awesome. Dan made the pick. Familiar Linked Aether Ability "Dark Bolt" Gained. The next level appropriate monster he ran into was gonna have a bad day. Dan smiled. He turned and looked at the large bird sitting next to him. The raven was very still. "How are you feeling, Ray?" "I am well. Before this sunset, I was my own master. Now you are my master. We have spoken at length. We each know the other has not lied, and I trust you. This is still a bittersweet thing. Come, let us get you to the Lonely Moonflower." The raven flew off and Dan hopped down, grabbed his gear, and followed. The bird set a hard pace and the human pushed to keep up. He could not have done so without his enhanced agility and constitution of course, which bolstered his speed and stamina, but it was also subtly enabled by his supreme perception. He navigated around the minor obstacles and uneven footing of the forest floor without effort or conscious thought, and his balance and coordination were on a level unattainable by natural humans. He should have been planning. This was a gift of three hours to think and analyze with the use of far more data than he''d had the day before. He needed a plan. Instead, his mind turned again and again to his new friend and familiar, who had just voluntarily sacrificed a portion of their freedom, and to home. Dan thought about the people he had been taken from, the work he''d left behind. This new earth had super powers, new friends to make and many new things to learn. It did not have online shopping, smartphones, Google, his mom, lemonade, coffee (he''d asked), his van, the reading chair in his living room, Netflix, Wikipedia, Reddit, his job and coworkers, and in general the life that he knew and loved. The life that he had been trained, by others and then by himself, to belong in. Then there was Ray. The bird who was a person older, smarter and more powerful than him had trusted Dan enough to voluntarily agree to a relationship where Dan was his master. That was never not going to feel weird. He very much hoped not to miscarry the raven''s trust. Eventually, the truth became clear to his tired brain, and that truth was that his brain was too tired. He had asked too much of it, stretched the poor thing to its limit. It had, to its credit, performed admirably. But now it had little left to give, and no matter how much he demanded that it plan, it was tired, and could be pushed no further, and so returned to safe memories of home. He let it rest, and Dan''s mind settled into the comfortable rhythm of footfalls. Chapter 20 Dan followed the twilight raven through somber shadows cast by the forest in the dying light of day. In the half light the mammoth straight trunked pines seemed truly alien. They felt primordial, ageless, unearthly. He wondered how many nights like this they had been there to greet the rise of this earth''s three moons. The thought left him with a fleeting sense of awe that rippled through his body in a wave of pleasant frisson, chased by less metaphysical ponderings about the three moons. How would three moons effect tidal patterns, and thus weather patterns and climate? How well was meteorology understood here? Wait, were there oceans? Presumably. Ray had mentioned that the city of Weaverton was on "The Great River". Could great rivers exist without oceans to flow into? It was harder than he would have guessed to try to imagine how a world could differ from Earth, his earth. One thing that was no longer a mystery was why there were so few monsters. There were two reasons, as Ray had explained. The first was that this area of forest was the twilight raven''s claimed domain, and it did not welcome monsters within. The second was that monsters were instinctively drawn toward population centers of System races - in this world, humans, elves, and orcs (because of course there were humans, elves and orcs). It was not known how monsters sensed and were pulled toward the locations of groups of people, only that they did. It seemed capricious and arbitrary to Dan that monsters drew such a hard distinction between humanoid intelligent beings and those with the System classification of Noble Beast such as Ray and other twilight ravens. Apparently monsters were aggressive towards noble beasts if they happened upon them but did not instinctively hunt them down. Dan was the only member of a System race within many miles, and so there was no monster beacon. Three days before, Dan had been paraplegic. Now he ran through the crisp night air of an ancient forest on an alien world, his senses alight as a river of small details flooded his mind with each step. The sheer change in who he was, the physical being that made up Dan Martin, left him unsettled and disoriented in a small, deep way. He was disabled. Then the System cured him, lifted him to a state better than healthy, better than merely human. He was disabled and human. Now, without his consent, he had been made more. And he was less. Disconnected, and not just because the forest he ran through was in a world that may not even be in the same physical universe. Oddly, what was hardest for Dan to get used to at the moment was the feel of the ground under his feet through the soft soled leather shoes with which the System had replaced his original footwear. In many places it was a thick layer of fallen pine needles interspersed with leaves that looked to have fallen the previous autumn and various hues of moss and fungus. It was springy and spongy underfoot. The sensations flowed unhindered from nerve endings in his feet and toes through the central column of data collection that was his spinal cord and into his mind. And that was new. Almost as much as his restored ability to freely move, to walk and run and jump, full and accurate tactile response in his legs and feet was a profound physical change. His injury had been a fixed point, a demarcation. It was not possible to remain exactly the same person he had been before the accident, and so he had changed. Dan was proud of how he had ultimately chosen to respond and who he had become. And now he ran. It was wonderful, an emancipation, but it brought with hope and joy a weight of foreboding responsibility that trailed like one of the shadows that danced across the woods as he ran past them. He had changed again, would change yet further, and in ways that might be only partially within his control. He resolved to do the best he could to remain a man his family would love and recognize. It was a small goal, and might have been a silly thing to focus on when so much was new and amazing and deserved his attention. But he was, after all, still human, and he needed this. He needed to believe the Dan who came out at the end of this could still be, in a way that mattered, the same Dan. It was full night when they reached a quiet meadow, sheltered at the base of a hill so large and wide it almost seemed like a mountain that had grown sleepy and laid down on its side for a long nap. A sea of knee height grass bent and swayed under silver moon light, the slender blades blurring together in a gentle hiss that was almost a lullaby. It was so peaceful and idyllic that the scene seemed enchanted, gently taking hold of all who entered, wrapping them up and leaving them serenely spellbound. It seemed viscerally wrong that this place and monsters should be part of the same world. But did Dan''s earth truly lack for beauty or for monsters? First Ray of Dawn Through Wet Leaves glided in a slow arc and came to a rest on Dan''s right shoulder. It was a simple act. There were no trees in the immediate area, so his shoulder was the most convenient perch. They were master and familiar. But it had been a quiet trip to this meadow, each lost in their own thoughts, and the gesture seemed weighted with symbolic meaning Dan was not in a mood to parse at the moment. "This is the place?" The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. "It is. The World''s Energy is strong here, but on this night the Lonely Moonflower drinks most of it for herself. You should be able to sense it." Dan could. There was a point in the field that glowed fiercely in his Aether sense. He walked over, bent down, and gently parted the cool grass. There, growing almost flat to the damp soil, was a mass of tiny, leafy shoots and nestled within, a minuscule white flower. This small, single bloom was the first non-sentient that he had been able to detect through Sense Power. Dan reached out and gently, almost reverently, brushed the leaves back, giving him an unobstructed view. The flower was no wider than a fingernail. Its tiny white petals drank the moonlight as they fluttered faintly in the breeze, like the wings of a moth. System Identify confirmed that it was indeed a Lonely Moonflower. "What do I do, Ray?" "Eat the flower." Well, that was simple enough. It felt wrong though. Sacrilegious perhaps, a strange aversion for a man who had always been more concerned with the material than the spiritual. He got over it. Dan plucked the flower and ate it. It was bitter, with insubstantial papery petals and a stringy stem. As soon as he swallowed it down, he was rewarded with a System notification. Congratulations! You have gained a +5 bonus to Constitution by consuming a Lonely Moonflower. Further consumption of this substance will have diminishing returns. Dan felt an upwell of vitality that he would have found difficult to quantify or describe. His body was just... better. More resilient, tougher. "Thank you, Ray." "You''re welcome. Please do keep this place and this flower a secret. We can return on this day four more years before you will gain no further benefit." "Don''t worry, I won''t tell anyone. Should we stay here for the night before traveling to Weaverton in the morning?" The raven paused before replying. Dan was still some distance from anything close to fluent in twilight raven body language, but had begun to get the idea that when Ray was still in response to a question, that usually meant his familiar had mixed feelings about the answer. "This is a good place to rest tonight. However, there is another place we could go in the morning. In System worlds there is a phenomenon called Dungeons. They are places of great danger, but the System rewards those who succeed in meeting their challenges. It rewards more generously those who are the first to conquer a new Dungeon, and more generously yet the very few who conquer dungeons alone, without a party of fellow System race beings. It is customary to enter in a group of five, the largest allowed. Dungeons have level locks. There is a great leap in power for those of System races from level nine to level ten, and only those of level nine or lower may enter many Dungeons. There is a Dungeon newly born into my wood. As yet, none of your kind know of it. If we leave in the morning for Weaverton, I do not believe it will remain hidden or that we can be the first to claim it when we return. We could face it together first. There is risk, but very great reward." Dan sat in the softly rustling grass for several seconds. It was his turn to be still and quiet. "Just to clarify, rather than go to the city and find others of my kind, the first I will have met on this world, where I can get equipment, training, information, and allies, you are suggesting that just the two of us take on an untested Dungeon all by ourselves? And you know that I am level five and have no meaningful combat training or experience and minimal equipment?" "Yes." "Oh. Huh." So then. If Ray wanted him dead, there were far easier ways to accomplish that then tricking him into going into a dungeon unprepared. What were the relevant questions here then? Off of the top of his head, Dan had a few. One was "on average, how many members of a five man team of level nine adventurers going into a level nine locked untested dungeon come back out of it alive and in sound body and mind?" Another was "how does the general utility and combat potential of a Dan and Ray team compare with that hypothetical five man team of level nine adventurers?" It was totally plausible that Ray was the stronger side all alone. Dan just didn''t have enough information to make an informed judgment. His initial impression was that this seemed like a stupid, unnecessary risk. But Ray was not stupid, and had good cause to have at minimum Dan''s intermediate range best interests at heart. So this suggestion had to be taken seriously. Other things he needed to know: Just what kind of rewards were potentially up for grabs here? Were dungeons generally just straightforward tests of combat ability, or could they end up stuck deep underwater or somewhere with a poisonous atmosphere or something? What about traps? He was pretty sure he could at least sense those, but that didn''t give him means or expertise to disarm or evade them. How long did it take to clear a dungeon? How much food and water would they need to pack to be safe on provisions? What does it mean to conquer a dungeon? Why was he asking himself these questions rather than his centuries old familiar? Chapter 21 It was morning, the sun was shining, and Dan and Ray were going to a dungeon. On a very fundamental level, this felt dumb. Cities were nice places, with things like street food, other people, and beds. Dungeons were not nice places. At best, they were cages for people. System dungeons were worse than that. They actively tried to kill you. So why were they going to a dungeon rather than a city? The short answer was that after careful thought, they''d decided that it was worth the risk. Dan had relied heavily on Ray''s judgment here. Dan had no framework for adjudging the risk of dungeon diving against the potential rewards; this was all still too foreign, there were too many concepts that would need to be explained in order to explain other concepts before he could even begin to make an intelligent risk assessment. So basically, his familiar thought this was worth doing. Dan believed, as a matter of principle, that he should trust Ray''s judgment on most things, at least for the time being. Ray simply knew far more of the System, world, and, importantly, of Ray. They had gone through Dan''s list of questions of course. There was no such thing as an average five man dungeon team. Skills, abilities, classes, team coordination, experience, team synergy and composition (a different thing than how well a team worked together), equipment, training, and other factors varied so widely that there was no meaningful standard for an average team. Further, First Ray of Dawn Through Wet Leaves was a noble beast, not a member of one of the System races. As knowledgeable as his familiar was on a wide variety of topics, general dungeon mortality statistics were apparently not a topic they could speak to with authority. What Ray did know was that Espers with twilight raven familiars of level twelve or higher rarely had serious problems in level nine locked dungeons. Given that the Esper class was only indirectly useful in combat, this suggested that twilight ravens were quite a bit more than monstrously powerful. Since monsters were, you know, monstrously powerful by definition, and twilight raven plus Esper teams supposedly curb stomped them. As far as his other dungeon related concerns went, the basic principle was that they generally played fair. The nature and degree of challenge they posed varied, but most of the time the problems they presented were soluble with good judgment, good preparation, solid combat ability, at least one aether user, and at least one team member with high perception. The latter two were evidently rarer than one would think. According to Ray, roughly one in one hundred humans were born with access to the attribute Aether Attunement, and it was extremely unusual for the attribute to be unlocked later in life (though all Vanguards had access to it). Further, most common classes did not have Perception as a core attribute. This had been an enlightening explanation. It also made clear that Dan was going to have to learn how to phrase his questions better, because when he''d asked about an average team (which apparently didn''t exist) something like that had been very much what he had in mind. Ah well. Again, there was a lot there to be uncomfortable about. That was even setting aside the obvious point that he was willingly about to enter a life or death fight against an unknown number of monsters of unknown kind and abilities. In a lot of areas, Dan felt that he had quite good judgment. "How to survive a System dungeon" was not one of those areas. He also had minimal combat experience and preparation. On the plus side he was an Aether user with incredibly high Perception, but Dan really was betting everything on his familiar here. Who he had met a day and a half ago. Life had gotten strange. "Dan, do you see the stream ahead? We should stop there. There are berry bushes, and we can fill your water skin." "Sounds good." They stopped for breakfast, bright red berries plucked from a bush heavy with them that grew on the bank of a fast flowing stream. They looked and tasted fairly similar to raspberries. Dan filled two large exterior pockets of his backpack with the fruit before they left. If you were going to attack a dungeon, it seemed better to do so with healthy snacks packed. Dan followed Ray through the forest. The large bird flew with quick, powerful wing strokes. For as much as the twilight raven seemed comfortable with lengthy conversation at rest, they weren''t too talkative while traveling. It was uncanny how much the alien looked like a large raven from Dan''s world. There was at least one physiological difference Ray had mentioned: Twilight ravens reproduced asexually and did not have genders. Also, their total population had some sort of a soft arbitrary global cap enforced by unknown means. Again, Ray was in fact an alien. Dan felt like they should be talking about the upcoming dungeon on the way there. In particular, he needed to know in much more detail what his familiar''s powers were and how they could be applied. But it felt like an imposition to break the silence. Even though Dan was technically Ray''s master, the alien raven was kinda intimidating in a way that made it very easy to err on the side of showing respect. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. They traveled for an hour before they came to the dungeon. It was deep in the woods where ancient trees towered above and shunted away most light. The entrance was a void of absolute, unnatural black, cut in an ovoid shape out of a massive boulder covered in lichen. Dan used System Identify on the tear in reality. Dungeon Entrance - Prison of the Fallen Naga (Level restricted to 9 and lower). "So... does the name tells us anything useful?" "The dungeon may have a prison theme. I do not know what a Naga is. ''Fallen'' , I have heard, may be a System race and corrupted to become monsters." Well, that was disquieting. Dan made a mental note to ask later how an entire race could be turned into monsters. "I might know ''Naga'', at least a little. It''s a word from my world, it means snake, or in some mythologies or stories, snake people. Maybe this is a prison of snake people monsters? The goblins I fought in my Initial Trial were more or less what people in my culture would have guessed goblins would be like." "Very possibly. I think this is your dungeon, Dan. It does not feel right that you would appear here, now, so close to the birth of this dungeon, if it were not meant for you. It does not surprise me that its name means more to you than it does to me." "I suspected. It fits the pattern. I''m given a unique opportunity with huge risk, huge potential reward and a short decision window. My best guess? This place is going to be tuned to our abilities, to challenge us specifically, but also be something we can handle." Dan felt suddenly tired. An escalating cycle of this stuff could get old fast. And eventually, he''d probably die. You could only get so many good rolls of the dice in a row. That was just math. "I agree." Dan sat down, leaned back against a tree, and took a long drink of water. "Ray, before we go into that dungeon, I need to know what your powers actually are. What can you do?" The raven chuckled, and shifted on its branch. "A direct question. No sense of mystery, no surprises. Very well. I can fly. My primary direct attack is Dark Bolt. That is now your best weapon also. It is especially powerful against living things." "Powerful against living things is good. Monsters are living things." Ray chuckled again. "This is true. It has a component of kinetic damage. This is the element that is effective against non-living targets. It also damages life force and causes lethargy." Dan abrubtly wondered whether he was one of the baddies. "My secondary attack is Lightning Bolt. Twilight ravens have only one parent, but those over level twenty may seek out another noble beast of feathered kind and gain their imprint to pass on to their chick before laying an egg. I am imprinted by a Thunderbird. This gave me a hatch right of greater agility, slightly greater aether attunement, and the Lightning Bolt Aether Ability. However, it is much weaker and more expensive for me than for a Thunderbird. It is very rare that I have had cause to use it." Because of course Ray was part Thunderbird. Why wouldn''t Ray be part Thunderbird? "Within my domain, I may place one Sensory Locus that is limited to sight and hearing. Once per day, I may teleport from anywhere else within my domain to my Sensory Locus. While the entrance to the dungeon is within my domain, these abilities will not help us inside the dungeon." "That''s how you could watch me as I slept and make a dramatic surprise entrance after I killed the wrax?" "Oh yes. There were other ways, but this was the most fun." Dan remembered then that all twilight raven fledglings were incorrigible brats. "Most of my abilities are based on darkness or negative illusion. Positive illusions cause a thing that does not exist to be perceived. Negative illusions prevent a thing that that does exist from being perceived. Among my negative illusion Aether Abilities, I can inflict temporary blindness, deafness, or loss of scent. I can become invisible, or silent, or hide from many other senses. I can cause short term amnesia. I can cause brief disorientation in a single target. Two illusionary abilities are my most powerful. One completely removes me from any form of perception or detection but also prevents me from using any other Aether Abilities or taking physical actions other than moving. The second removes all light from a sphere with an eight meter radius, centered on me. The illusionary abilities which effect me I can also use on you through the familiar bond, though at a greatly increased Aether cost due to your larger size. There are limits to how often I may use some of these abilities." Ray was scary. Also, it was very odd that they had an ability with an area of effect so evenly measured in the metric system. Sam had claimed that this was another physical world, but it would all make much more sense if it were a simulation. Though honestly, even if that made more sense, that wasn''t a lot of sense. "OK, that''s quite impressive. So in general, you can blind or otherwise incapacitate your opponents, then blast them with dark bolt until they''re dead?" "Yes. I have other abilities. I do not require sleep. I can cause a willing target to enter a deep sleep, or cause intense fatigue in an unwilling target. I can relieve tiredness, much like a good nap. I can sense lies. I can teleport up to forty-three centimeters in any direction. I can communicate with most of feathered kind. I am skilled at imitating sound and throwing my voice. I am very handsome and charming." "Yes you are, Ray, yes you are. Ready to go charm some Fallen Naga to death?" "But of course." Chapter 22 The impossibly black hole cut into a massive boulder that sat at the base of an ancient tree did not look like a thing that should be entered. Dan''s lizard brain and every bed time story he''d ever heard agreed on this. Logically, it was dumb to even think of changing his mind because the dungeon entrance was intimidating - because he was scared of the dark. On the other hand, if RPGs were based on worlds like this, the symbolism couldn''t be safely ignored. It was signage on the road - danger, do not enter here. He didn''t doubt for a moment that everything here was real, in the sense that actions had consequence and death was permanent. Still, the parallels to RPGs were blatant. If this were a scripted RPG, with him as the protagonist, the blessed and chosen one, where was he at in the game? What was this telling him? Dan had always had a bit of an interest in mythology. It wasn''t a passion and he wasn''t an expert or amateur scholar. But he''d read a few books through the years, picked through Wikipedia, watched a (mostly disappointing) documentary or two. If this was in some way a role playing game, then it was also a story. More specifically, it was probably a heroic myth. From what he remembered of the Hero''s Journey or mono-myth theory, Joseph Campbell style, things were a bit out of sequence - he hadn''t been given a chance to refuse the call for example - but did fit the basic pattern so far. He''d been given and more or less accepted the quest. Then he met a magical mentor (Ray), who gave him a magic MacGuffin (the Lonely Moonflower) that would help him later in the journey. The ominous black void before him would pretty clearly be the step in the journey "Crossing the First Threshold". That''s where the hero takes the plunge from the known world into the world of danger, mystery, and power. At first he thought that didn''t make sense, that it was out of order because that happened back in the first chapter where the System cured his paralysis and gave him super powers. But none of that was his choice. To fit the mono-myth, he had to cross the threshold by his own will. Then, if memory served, he''d enter the Belly of the Whale and continue on to The Road of Trials. Those weren''t fun parts of the story for the hero. That part of the story always sucked if you were the hero. The over the top foreboding symbolism of the scene struck him as almost precision engineered to direct his thoughts down this track. His first thought on seeing it had been of children''s fairy tales. Don''t go alone into the deep dark wood, where frightening eldritch things lurk to grab you. Concurrent with his first thought had been his first instinct on seeing it: This was a place of danger. But his reaction had not been only fear. There was also a tingle of excitement, a seductive pull to the unknown. OK, so that was the scenario through the lens of myth. Look at it as a scripted RPG. He''d just passed the tutorial (the Initial Trial) and was now in the open world adventure portion of the proceedings. He had his great quest, and the road split down two paths. This was his last chance to turn back to the (more or less) known, safe world. "You look like you''re trying to crack a nut with your brain. What are you thinking about?" The question broke Dan''s analytic trance. "The way the dungeon entrance looks, it''s like the scene is set up. This might sound funny, but I think it might be a message from the System to me, personally. It''s saying that while we can handle this, it will be dangerous, and we won''t have an easy time getting back here to this world once we enter." Ray hopped on a thick twig, cocked their head twice, and looked at Dan with a curious, intent expression. Or at least what Dan interpreted as such. Twilight raven body language remained a work in progress. He was working on it. "Interesting. Very interesting. If this is your dungeon, I suppose it would not be a surprise if the entrance was somehow a message to you. But the message, if you hear it right, is curious. Dungeons don''t tend to be drawn out affairs. Either you conquer them or they kill you. They are a matter of hours, or sometimes days. Exceptions exist. Now that I think on it, one marked as a Chosen Esper is exceptional already, and should expect an exceptional dungeon. Second thoughts?" "Yes, but none that change my mind. I think you''re right that this is my dungeon, and that the System means for us to go here, in the same way that Chosen Esper was the Blessing I was supposed to pick. This is also going to sound weird, but it almost feels like there''s a path I''m supposed to find, a series of correct steps, and if I find those steps and don''t mess up along the way, that''s how my story is supposed to go." Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. "Daniel, this is a dangerous habit of thought. It doesn''t even need to be wrong to be dangerous. This is not a story or a game. You may be chosen and blessed, but that will not shield you. If we go through that entrance, you must be ready to focus only on what is directly ahead of us, or you may die. Inattention kills." Ray was right of course. Young Arthur would do well to listen to mage Merlin, who had put his vast wit and hundreds of summers at the service of his new liege. Still, the mythic interpretation of all this felt right. Not just "right" as in correct, but as in righteous, that it would be a moral wrong somehow to reject. It was instinct, and Dan felt it powerfully. He didn''t think it irrational to trust instinct that strong. The thought that he had absurdly high Perception, and that that may have undescribed effects, flickered through his mind. "I understand. If you haven''t noticed, I tend to get a bit tangled up in my head before I commit to something I can not easily back out of. I just like to think everything through, be sure I haven''t missed something." "Even Espers can not see all. Do we do this, or do we not?" "Yep, let''s do this." The human and twilight raven took a few minutes to put together a plan on what to do immediately after they entered the dungeon. As plans went, it had the virtue of being really really simple. First, get their bearings as quickly as they possibly could. Second, kill any monsters in the immediate area. Third, make a new plan. Dan was as ready as he could make himself. A sling bullet pulled gently at his finger, the familiar tension a comfort as he prepared to cross the threshold. His backpack sat snugly on his shoulders over the fur he''d claimed from the goblin chieftain. He took a loose stance, weight on the balls of his feet, ready to move or dodge. "Ready?" "Ready." They entered the dungeon. At once Dan''s senses reported a flood of pertinent facts. It was hot, a stifling hot, and the air was thick with humidity and a miasma of strange aether. His hands were chained above his head by a pair of metal (iron?) manacles, and the chain ran through a loop sunk into the stone wall. His feet were each cuffed to the wall above the ankle, and his backpack lay on the ground beside him. His sling dangled down from his right hand, which was honestly kind of funny in the circumstances, and his belt bag remained strapped around his waist. He was fully clothed, including the fur about his shoulders. There was a light aperture up and to his left. It was small, and shadows showed that three bars ran through it vertically. Light came through, and that meant it was daytime. The ground was wet dirt, almost mud. The walls and ceiling were hewn stone blocks caked with grime. Most of a humanoid skeleton lolled in one corner of the cell. It was probably there just to add ambiance to the scene. Everything stank. The air was thick with decay and rot, accented by the smell of swamp that drifted through the small, barred window. Three walls of the cell were stone, but the fourth was made of metal bars and included the barred door. Ray was in a large bird cage that hung from the ceiling by a chain. All of that mattered, but the most immediate of the many facts his senses reported was that there were prison guards. They had the lower bodies of large snakes, maybe pythons or anancondas, that rose up to a height of maybe five or six feet tall and spread into a wide, cobra''s hood. They each had two pair of arms, the upper very much like a human''s and a smaller second set that shrunk down to dull claws and looked nearly vestigial. They were armed with spears (what was it with semi-intelligent monsters and spears?), there were five of them, and they were hostile. System Identify confirmed that they were fallen Naga, with levels between five and eight. The prison cell Ray and Dan were in was set at the end of a long hall with rows of cells on both sides, and the guards patrolled its length. All of this took less than a second to process. The combined boost to his ability to filter and understand sensory data from his incredibly high Perception attribute and Chosen Esper blessing joined to form a true cognitive super power. Dan could form and understand an accurate picture of his surroundings almost instantly after getting dumped there from another world. Ray was only slightly behind him in reacting. So even though they were imprisoned, outnumbered, and should have been disoriented, Dan and Ray got the jump on their new jailors. A rapid salvo of dark bolts issued from within the prison cell. Monster Defeated, Fallen Naga Jailer (lvl 7). Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Fallen Naga Jailer (lvl 5). Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Fallen Naga Jailer (lvl 8). Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Fallen Naga Jailer (lvl 5). Aether Gained. Congratulations! You have reached Level 6 in Esper Class. 2 Points of Perception awarded. 1 free attribute point awarded. 1 free level six perk awarded. 1 free Aether Ability awarded. Aether Ability "Track Prey" (R4, Esper) awarded. Monster Defeated, Fallen Naga Jailer (lvl 7). Aether Gained. The snake men monster things never had a chance. Ray was a powerful level 14 noble beast, and Dan''s borrowed Dark Bolts were just as strong as Ray''s. They were cheap in aether cost too. Each only took one fourteenth of Dan''s (or Ray''s) Aether Pool. An ordinary dungeon party could easily have been turned into pin cushions where they stood chained, struggling against their bonds. "Well, that was anticlimactic. Ray, could you please teleport out and go check if one of the keys on that ring hanging on the far wall can get me out this cell?" "My pleasure. Welcome to your first dungeon." Chapter 23 Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Elder Goliath Toad (Aural), lvl 11. Monster Type: Goliath Toad Congratulations! Dungeon Mini-Boss Defeated. Reward Bonus Multiplier - Party of One! Reward Bonus Multiplier - Dungeon Pioneer! Bonus Aether Gained. Congratulations! You have reached Level 7 in Esper Class. 2 Points of Perception awarded. 1 free attribute point awarded. 1 free level seven perk awarded. 1 free Aether Ability awarded. Aether Ability "Roving Eye" (R5, Esper) awarded. Monster Defeated, Elder Goliath Toad (Aural), lvl 11. Aether Gained. Chapter 24 Name: Daniel Martin Age: 29 Species: Human Class: Esper Level: 7 Health: 296/296 Aether Pool: 52.92/289 Health Regeneration: .138/minute Aether Regeneration: .35/second Attributes Strength: 24 Constitution: 28 Agility: 32 Perception: 112 Aether Attunement: 27 Available: 2 Skills Sling Marksmanship, Level 5 Perks Brain Cage Enhanced Evasion 1 Universal Translator Aether Contractor Familiar Mind Link (3 available) Aether Abilities Unerring Aim [self] (R5, Esper): Level 1 Sensory Locus (R5, Esper): Level 1 Peer Through Past [recent, item focus] (R3, Esper): Level 1 Minor Restore Health (R2, Restoration): Level 1 Minor Aether Bolt (R1, Evocation): Level 1 Detect Monster (R3, Esper): Level 1 Sense Deceit (R6, Esper): Level 1 Eagle Eye (R3, Esper): Level 1 Universal Compass (R9, Esper): Level 1This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Penetrating Sight (R4, Esper): Level 1 Cleanse (R1, Alteration): Level 1 Contract Familiar (R5, Esper/Conjuration): Level N/A Dark Bolt (R5, Evocation - Familiar Link): Level N/A (4 available) Monster Defeated, Deep Swamp Assassin Fly (Altered), lvl 6. Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Deep Swamp Assassin Fly (Altered), lvl 5. Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Deep Swamp Assassin Fly (Altered), lvl 6. Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Deep Swamp Assassin Fly (Altered), lvl 7. Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Deep Swamp Assassin Fly (Altered), lvl 3. Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Deep Swamp Assassin Fly (Altered), lvl 5. Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Deep Swamp Assassin Fly (Altered), lvl 4. Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Five Pace Scorpion (Altered), lvl 8. Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Five Pace Scorpion (Altered), lvl 8. Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Five Pace Scorpion (Altered), lvl 8. Aether Gained. Monster Defeated, Five Pace Scorpion (Altered), lvl 8. Aether Gained. Chapter 25 This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. Conqueror Worm, lvl 13. Monster Type: Ambush Worm Chapter 26 Dan paused, forced himself to relax, and let his senses unfurl and spread, like a flag in stiff wind. Ahead there was the buzz of insects and an amorphous cloud of danger. Around him hung the thick, wet air of a world not his own. It was hot and still, rich with the fresh stink of swamp, and clung to his skin, belongings, and the stone walls of the dungeon corridor. The danger was still and distant, so it was safe to stop and think. Days ago he had been home, safe, content. Now he''d been surgically extracted from that life and conscripted into the most convoluted cosmic personality profile/job interview imaginable and charged with saving Earth. No pressure. It bothered Dan that he couldn''t quickly remember just how many times he''d almost died since then. It was a lot. Yet he had grown strong. He was so much stronger, so quickly, with abilities beyond sci-fi and in the realm of fantasy. Quicker, stronger, tougher, once again sound in body, gifted with quasi-magical aether abilities, and beyond and above all of that, he was a Chosen Esper, anointed with powers that combined to grant what seemed almost a localized omniscience. Tactical Precognition and Danger Sense were the weird ones. It was impossible to understand how they could work. They worked. The mental dissonance was like sand in the gears of his mind that added friction to the flow of his thoughts and made it hard to act appropriately on the information those senses gave. They''d proven reliable, saved his life repeatedly, but they still felt alien and it took effort to trust them. On the hard packed dirt of the floor beside him, First Ray of Dawn Through Wet Leaves hopped slightly to the right. The raven was Dan''s greatest asset, a wholly unearned deep reservoir of experience, wisdom, and power, as well as a friend and companion in a terrifying, strange world. Since meeting Ray, the obviously correct answer to nearly any question was to ask the bird what to do, then do it. Dan knew this, and was grateful, but still resented it at the same time. His greatest strength was his ability to take a mass of data and sink into it until its secrets grew solid in his mind and the path forward lit up. He''d been Chosen out of 10,000 earthling test subjects to receive ridiculous information gathering super powers. The whole test was apparently of how well the subjects could make fast, sound decisions, with limited data and under extreme physical, mental and emotional stress. And now the solution to every problem was "Ask Ray." It was like the whole thing had shifted into a multiple choice exam where the right answer to every question was A. For the first several, one might be able to keep focused and think through B, C, and D carefully. After a while? You started to move to fill in the bubble for A before even really understanding the question. Still, that was where he was at. Once again there was a question, once again he''d probably die if he came up with the wrong answer, and once again the right answer was obviously to ask his familiar. "Ray, I think we''re about to run into that swarm problem. Any more ideas? Because I don''t like the launch one fireball then run plan, but I haven''t got any better ones." "I can temporarily disorient a swarm of weak minded bugs. That will delay them, and help us retreat." "Better than nothing. How do we actually kill a swarm of normal sized, highly venomous, stinging, flying bugs though? I don''t think that this dungeon should have insoluble problems." "Yet it appears to be such. Is there a trick? Some resource we, or more likely you, have been given that answers this question? I do like tricks. If it were my task to build a dungeon, there would be tricks." "Good point. Whatever the buzzing swarm is, I don''t think it''s going anywhere. It''s waiting for us to make the first move, so we should have a bit of time to think this through. The bugs we''ve fought so far don''t seem smart, but do seem to be coordinated by something or someone. An odd thing: Sense Life and my ears say there are a bunch of bugs ahead, but Detect Monster only indicates one monster. Do you think that might be the master, and the others are just normal, if dangerous, bugs? If we kill the master maybe the normal bugs won''t continue to attack us?" "An odd thing? An odd thing!? Dan, I am clever and experienced, but my senses are not as absurdly acute as yours. I can''t help adequately if you withhold vital information. Yes, only that makes sense. If you sense danger, and life, and hear the buzz of a swarm, but sense only one monster, then that monster is the master and the swarm is of simple, but dangerous, flying creeping stinging things. We must kill the master before it knows we are there." "I like this plan much more. Uh, how? I know that you are good with illusions, but you said that it takes a lot more Aether to make me undetectable than it does for just you. Can you sneak in and kill the thing alone?" "Possibly. I doubt it. In dungeons, it is wise to distrust anything that seems easy." "Yeah, I don''t think so either."You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. "So, one master controlling a bunch of dangerous non-monster bugs. We need a plan for both. I think I remember something about insects not doing well in smoke. Do you suppose those robber fly and giant scorpion corpses might be flammable?" Several minutes later, greasy, acrid smoke filled Dan''s nostrils as he waited. The dead scorpions had been heavier than they looked, but now burned a merry flame in a grotesque insectoid pyre. Ray, imperceptible to most senses, flew silently and invisibly around the corner of the hall and toward the buzzing mass. Dan listened for any sign of how the bug boss assassination attempt fared. As it happens, it went better than expected. Congratulations! Dungeon Mini-Boss Defeated. Reward Bonus Multiplier - Party of One! Reward Bonus Multiplier - Dungeon Pioneer! Bonus Aether Gained. Congratulations! You have reached Level 8 in Esper Class. 2 Points of Perception awarded. 1 free attribute point awarded. 1 free level eight perk awarded. 1 free Aether Ability awarded. Aether Ability "Scent the Blood (R5, Esper)" awarded. Monster Defeated, Corrupter of Creeping Beasts (Fallen Naga), lvl 15. Aether Gained. Well, that aether ability didn''t sound creepy or anything. That thought was about all Dan had time for before a once again visible Twilight Raven shot around the hall corner and toward the safety of the smoke cloud, pursued by a swarm of decidedly ill-tempered hornets. They were big, about the size of Japanese Giant Hornets, and extremely ticked off. Ray flew through the smoke and over the fire toward Dan. As soon as his familiar was clear, Dan launched a fireball at the approaching horde, turned, and ran like crazy. Man and bird fled as the surviving insects, hampered by the smoke, gave chase. Dan and Ray quickly approached the second fire they''d prepared, fueled by the corpse of the giant ambush worm. Dan leaped over the burning conqueror worm, close behind Ray. The hall was poorly ventilated and the hornets had lost their controller, though why they''d gone mad at the bug master''s death remained unclear. The plan, such as it was, was simple. If the hornets followed Ray, lead them to the first fire, then blast them with a giant aetherial fireball. If they flew through and over the first fire, hope they''d turn back when they reached the second and get trapped in a hall steadily filling with smoke. The points in the hall where the fires burned were carefully chosen. There were no windows between the two, no escape route from the choking smoke. The monster corpse fuel burned wet and threw off thick, black clouds. Dan''s Greater Fireball, courtesy of his Firestone Amulet, had taken out a wide swath of the swarm, and only a few hardy hornets made it through the gauntlet, weaker for it. Dan and Ray disposed of them easily as they waited for the smoke to do its work and for the fires to die down. There was something ironically humorous, in a way Dan could not quite put into words, about the System transporting him to one world, then to a dungeon in another, all to culminate in a test of his ability as a pest exterminator. The duo traveled down the hall, avoiding or killing the few surviving hornets, until they reached the large room that held the hive and the dead Corrupter of Creeping Beasts. The body was more thin than that of the Fallen Naga guards they''d fought upon arrival in the dungeon, with an intricate tessellating pattern of dark scales over light. Lifeless, it looked fragile, harmless, and rather beautiful. Shouldn''t monsters seem more monstrous? This thing had controlled that terrifying Conqueror Worm, among other horrific minions. The hive, disquietingly empty, rested on a short stone pillar in a corner of the large room. Sense Life detected no remaining hornets - every last one had attacked following the death of their master, which, Dan assumed, had triggered some sort of dead-man switch and driven them into a suicidal frenzy of vengeance. The room was lit by a large glowing crystal that hung from the ceiling. Short, broad wooden tables cluttered the space, along with a number of sealed earthenware jars and unfamiliar hand tools that looked rather like surgical instruments. "Ray, does the concept of the Mad Scientist exist in your world?" "An interesting phrase. As an archetype, it does not, though the Lifeweaver is a devoted researcher whose personal habits are rumored to tilt toward the eccentric." "In the stories of my world, it''s a classic trope. They are brilliant minds consumed by thirst for knowledge that end up tampering with things they shouldn''t, with disastrous consequences. Anyway, I think you just killed a mad scientist monster, and this is its laboratory." "Interesting." Dan had hoped for a bit more of a response than that, but wasn''t sure what he''d expected Ray to say. He was tired, and felt a sudden, strong need for a long nap in a warm, safe bed. It was an urge unsuited to the situation, and he forced himself to focus. His danger sense was quiet, and while the surroundings were vaguely creepy, the situation seemed safe enough. He forced his mind to cycle through each of his senses, old and new, focusing on the reports each gave. Nothing was amiss, other than the fact that he was in a dungeon on another world, inside the lab of a crazy alien monster scientist he and Ray (who was a sentient, centuries old bird with terrifying powers, and his only friend in this world) had just killed. Life had gotten so, so weird. Chapter 27 Life had, in fact, very quickly gotten very weird. This was unquestionably true, and a recurrent thought in moments of quiet since this System weirdness had begun. It was also a useful thought and reminder. This was not Dan''s element; none of this was natural or familiar. He had no training, instincts or habits to fall back on now. Those he left Earth with were now liabilities. There was still a moment of hesitation at times before he remembered his legs worked again and he should move them. He''d faced immediate, mortal danger and the need to react decisively to not die. This was not a thing he was used to, unless one thought of driving that way - which didn''t seem like a psychologically relevant comparison. His newly super powered body had nearly boundless energy, but his mind was tired. And maybe his soul, if that was a thing. "Ray, let''s take a bit to rest. I need to get my thoughts clear." "Wise. Your home is a soft world, is it not? You are unaccustomed to violence or danger." Oddly perceptive of the Raven to guess the direction of his thoughts. Or perhaps not. Twilight Ravens were a perceptive species, though it was not particularly intuitive that that extended to human psychology. Quite a feat, really, for Ray to be able to conceive of what it would be like to live so differently and the way leaving that life might effect a human. "Uh, yeah, I suppose my home is a soft world. Or at least the part of it I came from is pretty peaceful. Other parts, not so much." "How are you?" Dan thought. An interesting question. "I''m physically well. I am mentally tired, stressed, somewhat afraid, and somewhat disassociated. I know this is real, and it in one way all feels perfectly real, but in another it all seems like a vivid dream." "Natural, but concerning. This is not a healthy state of thought to carry through a dungeon, particularly nearer the dungeon''s end. Do you know of exercises to clear and focus your mind? If not, I could suggest one, but a familiar method will be more effective." Dan considered this. He had no formal training in mindfulness techniques or meditation or anything. He did have a series of simple questions that sometimes helped him pick through thickets of muddled complexity. "Well, I''m not sure I''ve got what you''d call a method or technique, but I do have some questions I like to think through when my mind starts to go off the rails. What has changed? What matters right now? What will matter later? What is important to keep in mind?" "Those are good questions. How would you answer them?" "What has changed: I am no longer on Earth. I have been selected as one of a small number of people from my world tasked with proving we''re worth saving. There is a quasi-omnipotent System that has granted me super powers, which I am supposed to use to gain power, presumably by fighting monsters, who also have super powers and are a thing that exists, for the next seven years. I met you and we now have a master/familiar relationship even though you are older, stronger and vastly more experienced. I am currently in a dungeon, and we need to fight our way through or die. If we do so, I gain improved super powers. I am no longer physically disabled. My super powers are especially super, as I''ve apparently been Chosen and put into the trial world, your world, in near perfect circumstances, and I''ve got a massive bonus to a powerful class in Esper. I think that about covers it?" "More or less. What matters to you right now, Dan?" "Right now? We''ve got to stay alive and fight through this dungeon. That''s the goal that matters. To achieve that, I''ve got to use my super powers to fight well, which is a problem because they''re so new that I''m clumsy with them and they all require conscious thought to use. It''s as if I had to think to breathe or something. I also need to work well with you and learn as much as I can to benefit from your experience and expertise to try to mitigate my ignorance here. I leveled up to 8, and that means I''ve got an attribute point, a perk point, and an aether ability to pick or to choose to save, but I''d really like to find something good I can just use them on this time. Scent the Blood is some kind of tracking ability, which I can put off, but please don''t let me forget to experiment with that when we have more time. I need to regain mental and emotional equilibrium and focus on what we''re doing. It''s not as if I''m a wreck currently or anything, but I''m pretty sure this dungeon is meant to push us pretty close to our, and especially my, limits. I want to be as close to my best as I can get." Ray bobbed his head in a way that Dan could somehow tell was approving, though he couldn''t put his finger on how he knew that. "I agree, that is a good summation of what we should think and do now. What will matter later?" Dan sat down and leaned heavily against the stone wall. He thought for a long moment, resting his hands on his knees. "That''s difficult. A lot of things are going to matter. Too many. I need to find a place in your world once we get back from this dungeon. Get to Weaverton, the city you told me about, and integrate into sapient society as quickly and well as I can. I need to learn pretty much everything. How to fight, how the System works, local culture, geography, ecology, monster types and behavior, combat, more about what equipment is available for fighting and how to use it, history, politics, how the economy works, law... There''s just an enormous amount I don''t know, that I guess I took for granted knowing back in my home. I need to continue to level up, but I also need to plan out as best I can what path to take as I level, in perks, attributes, aether abilities, and which of those I need to prioritize practicing. I''ll need to find a safe place to live, ideally that would also be a safe place to store belongings. I guess to sum it up, I''ve got to learn as much as I can as quickly as I can, and figure out what I need to learn first." "Good. You are very right. In my world, you could be compared to a bright child, with intellect but little experience or knowledge. I will do my best to protect and teach you as you learn, until you know what you must to make good choices yourself." "I''m not gonna lie, while I understand, agree, and appreciate that, it still feels a bit awkwardly paternal." Ray looked at the human quizzically. "My apologies. I do my best, but the workings of human minds are still opaque to me at times." "No no, it''s fine. I mention it only because I''m trying to clear my head, and one thing that''s been troubling me is that it doesn''t make sense, given the purpose of the trials, for me to be able to just ask you what to do in nearly every situation rather than figure things out and make decisions on my own. But as you said, I''ll be able to make informed choices once I''ve got my feet under me in your world. My near total reliance on you should be temporary."Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. "Just so. What is important to keep in mind?" "First thing is to trust my danger sense and tactical precognition. I know they work, but the fact that they do goes against how I was sure the physical laws of the universe functioned in a way that screws with my head a bit, and that results in a small delay before I can process what they''re telling me and react. I must get to where I can use those senses without getting distracted by the fact of their existence. Second thing, I need to remember the tools available to me in a fight. I''ve got super senses, some perks to partially make up for my lack of combat experience, Dark Bolt thanks to you, my sling which seems a bit underwhelming against monsters of this level, and moderately enhanced speed to go with slightly enhanced strength and constitution, and a Naga spear that I have no idea how to use. I''m still probably better off with the spear than trying to fight things up close with my feet, fists or knife though, or the tire iron. I''m not sure I should keep carrying that tire iron everywhere, trying to club monsters close to my level seems like a bad thing to be doing. I''m rambling." "Yes, the last point is very important to keep in mind. Have your questions helped? Are you feeling better?" "A bit, yeah. So, perk point, attribute, and aether ability to spend. I assume the perk goes to Enhanced Evasion 2 and the attribute to Agility like we talked about earlier?" "I believe they should, yes." Dan made the selections. "What about the aether ability? I assume that none of the non-Esper options are a good idea because of my penalty to those schools and low Aether Attunement?" "Yes, you should focus on your strengths. Your main strength is the combination of your Esper abilities and unreasonably high Perception. Your lesser strength is moving out of danger''s path. To that end, has the aether ability Kinesthetic Enhancement become available to you?" That sounded quite interesting. Dan quickly searched through the menu of available aether abilities and found it. It seemed to be a straightforward ability that improved the user''s awareness of their body in space, and the effect improved with the perception attribute. Perception already boosted that, and it had been enormously helpful. Kinesthetic sense was so easily overlooked, but Dan had seen how world class athletes moved with unearthly grace and control, and felt the difference in his own physical abilities. Also, it was an Esper school aether ability that directly improved his ability to fight. Most importantly, Ray recommended it. He spent the point, then immediately tried out his new tool. It had a ten minute duration, and could be used once every one hundred-minutes, and the sensation was difficult to describe. It was almost energizing, a feeling that he knew exactly how his body could move and how it couldn''t, aware of every option he had. It''d be easy to juggle blindfolded, or do parkour even without training or experience. He took a moment to review his status. Name: Daniel Martin Age: 29 Species: Human Class: Esper Level: 8 Health: 324/324 Aether Pool: 316/316 Health Regeneration: .151/minute Aether Regeneration: .53/second Attributes Strength: 24 Constitution: 28 Agility: 35 Perception: 116 Aether Attunement: 27 Available: 0 Skills Sling Marksmanship, Level 5 Perks Brain Cage Enhanced Evasion 1 Enhanced Evasion 2 Universal Translator Aether Contractor Familiar Mind Link Poison Resistance 1 Combat Instinct (2 available) Aether Abilities Unerring Aim [self] (R5, Esper): Level 1 Sensory Locus (R5, Esper): Level 1 Peer Through Past [recent, item focus] (R3, Esper): Level 1 Minor Restore Health (R2, Restoration): Level 1 Minor Aether Bolt (R1, Evocation): Level 1 Detect Monster (R3, Esper): Level 1 Sense Deceit (R6, Esper): Level 1 Eagle Eye (R3, Esper): Level 1 Universal Compass (R9, Esper): Level 1 Penetrating Sight (R4, Esper): Level 1 Cleanse (R1, Alteration): Level 1 Contract Familiar (R5, Esper/Conjuration): Level N/A Dark Bolt (R5, Evocation - Familiar Link): Level N/A Lesser Cure [self] (R2, Restoration): Level 1 Track Prey (R4, Esper): Level 1 Roving Eye (R5, Esper) : Level 1 Scent the Blood (R4, Esper): Level 1 Kinesthetic Enhancement (R5, Esper): Level 1 (3 available) Putting all of that together, it was just like Ray said. He had incredible senses and Esper abilities, and was quite good at not getting hit. As far as offense went, Dark Bolt was his big gun and after that he had a few options, none of them particularly good. Which was fair. It''d be unreasonable to be great at everything all at once. But just the fact that it was fair didn''t mean it wasn''t a problem. If he and Ray ran into something they couldn''t finish off with a volley of fourteen dark bolts a piece, that would... not be good. "Alright Ray, that''s enough of a break. Ready to get going and see what the dungeon throws at us next?" "Of course. Dungeons are such delightful little puzzles, aren''t they?" Chapter 28 Before leaving the monstrous mad scientist''s secret laboratory, Dan took a moment to refresh Detect Monster, Eagle Eye and Unerring Aim. The first two were only somewhat helpful, but there was no reason not to have them active. The third was almost cheating for a combatant whose primary weapons were a sling and Dark Bolt. He''d had them all active the entire time in the dungeon, and saw little reason not to have them in effect pretty much every waking moment. The Dungeon so far had been wholly linear. There was one path through it with no apparent means to veer off or find a different way to go. It had been named "Prison of the Fallen Naga", but as a facility for incarceration the design seemed wasteful and inefficient. Perhaps it had been shaped away from its original purpose. In any case, the pattern continued. There was a door out of the laboratory followed by a hallway with a mud floor, stone walls and an arched stone ceiling. The one thing that was different was that it was unlit. There were no torches or windows. This didn''t really present a problem for Dan, who had Thermal Sense, Echolocation and Tactical Precognition to navigate by. Ray, quite sensibly, snagged a ride on Dan''s right shoulder. The hall was rather long, and terminated in another door that was impervious to all of Dan''s attempts to detect what lay beyond it other than Danger Sense. That sense spoke in clear and unambiguous terms. If he opened the door, he would die instantly. Which was a problem. The door was the only way forward. "So Ray, apparently if I open this door, I''m going to immediately die according to my Danger Sense." "We could use the same method we did at the first such door in the dungeon. You wait back in ambush and I open it." "I''m not quite sure that''s a good idea this time. Danger Sense isn''t saying that it''s merely dangerous, or likely to result in death. If I open that door, I die instantly. Whatever can do that seems like it might be able to do the same to you." The raven cocked its head, then cocked it again. "Oh. That is indeed a different matter. The System does not cheat. This is your dungeon, and this is a puzzle within it. There will be a way to pass this obstacle, whatever its nature." "I mean, I figured that. But how? I don''t even have any ideas." "In general, it seems like there must be a measure we can take that will neutralize the method of instant death before we open the door. This may mean waiting for a particular moment in time or preparing in a certain way. It is possible the key is in the belongings of the defeated monster you described as a mad scientist, though I do not know what we would look for there. We may also be able to squeeze more information from your Danger Sense. It warns you when you envision a course that leads to your immediate harm, does it not?" "Yeah, that makes sense. That seems like the place to start. I can imagine slightly different actions involving the door - you opening it while I stand back four feet, five, twenty, in the other room, or opening it quickly or slowly, that kind of thing. We''ll see if any of them predict a different outcome. I think that the instantaneous nature of the threat also tells a bit. If it was for instance a trap that shot poison darts, that would kill me, but it''d take a little bit of time. At least several seconds. If it was a monster that could bite or crush or otherwise physically damage me, again I''d expect that I''d take at least a second or two to die if it was anything we could realistically fight. So I''m thinking it''s something in the manner of a trap that''s triggered when the door opens, maybe an aether enchanted device that shoots a massive fireball or something like that." "Speculative, but your thoughts do have some value. Why don''t you see what your Danger Sense has to say about opening the door very slowly?" Dan did. It was safe to pull the handle, which was a small length of a wooden rod parallel to the ground. It was safe to crack the door open. It was dangerous but not lethal to open it slightly further. The instant the door opened past a roughly sixty degree angle, Dan would die. It made no difference if he crouched low to the floor when the door opened, or if Ray opened it as he stood back several feet. As soon as it opened wide enough, the lights would snuff out. Several experiments later, a human and a twilight raven crouched behind a rectangular wooden table, pilfered from the laboratory. It was turned on its side to act as an improvised barrier. The human held a rope which ran to the side of the table, along the mud floor and under a smaller table before taking a ninety degree turn up, bent by the edge of the small table, to where it was tied around the door handle. This bit of engineering let them unlatch the door. Dan also had the longest of the naga spears at hand, laying on the ground with the butt against the door and the head away from it. The plan was to check what would happen if they unlatched the door with the rope and pushed it open with the spear. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. Dan envisioned pulling the robe and pushing with the spear. His Danger Sense was quiet. This was apparently a safe thing to do. He thought of opening the door then standing up after two seconds. This was instant death. He consulted his familiar. "Well, that''s progress I suppose? It''s safe to open the door, but as soon as there is a clear line of sight into the room, I die. So whatever kills me, it needs a clear shot, somehow. That''s also consistent with being able to partially open the door before dying." "Yes, we have been able to learn a bit of the nature of this threat. I fear we are still some distance from a solution to the puzzle though." "I know Ray, I know." Dan stood up, walked around the table, and paced in front of the stubborn door to death. They''d tried so many things already. His mind still churned away at the problem, but they were both running out of ideas. He closed his eyes and rubbed his hands over his face, imagined opening the door for what seemed like the millionth time. It was moderately dangerous. Wait, what? He opened his eyes and imagined opening the door. Instant death. He closed his eyes and tried again. Moderate danger. "Uh, I have no idea why, but if I open this door with my eyes closed, I don''t think I die." Ray hopped excitedly on the edge of the table. "Excellent, excellent! This is just the sort of puzzle solution I would expect. I do not know what could kill a being with open eyes but not one with closed. Dungeons have held stranger things than an object or monster that it is fatal to look upon however. This door seems to open to such a thing. It is fortunate that whatever power it holds is not triggered by other senses." "Sure enough. Is this really that easy? I wish there was a way to check if it works the same for you, if you''d be safe with your eyes closed." "Sadly, I''m not sure this room is safe for me at all. I do not have your obscene level of Perception, and would be greatly hindered without sight. If my guess is right, figuring out that you must keep your eyes closed is most of the challenge here. You should be able to handle it yourself." Dan considered. This was the first time that Ray had begged off or expressed concern for their own safety. But again, their incentives aligned, and the familiar contract would not allow Ray to knowingly act to Dan''s harm. The raven really did believe this would work. "Alright then, let''s wait until the hour is up and I can use Kinesthetic Enhancement again, then we''ll find out what''s behind this door." Dan ate a few berries, drank from his water skin, and did his best to relax and not think about how there was a very real chance he was going to die shortly after that door opened. All too soon the aether ability was ready. He activated it, checked with Ray, who was hidden behind the table, then closed his eyes and opened the door. It was as if a dam had broken. All of his senses blocked by the door were freed, and data flooded into him. Echolocation, Tactical Precognition, Detect Monster, Thermal Sense, Sense Power, Sense Aether, Sense Life, Sense Weakness - they all combined to paint a clear picture within his mind. The room held nothing but a single monster. It was small, no warmer than the surrounding air, glowed with aether, and was both powerful and fragile. The last element of the picture was that he had to dodge to the side immediately because the little monster was about to spit something that would kill him if it hit. Dan slipped to the side as a stream of liquid flew through the air where his body had been a fraction of a second before. He launched a Dark Bolt at the monster. Congratulations! Dungeon Mini-Boss Defeated. Reward Bonus Multiplier - Party of One! Reward Bonus Multiplier - Dungeon Pioneer! Bonus Aether Gained. Congratulations! You have reached Level 9 in Esper Class. 2 points of Perception awarded. 1 free attribute point awarded. 1 free level 9 perk awarded. 1 free Aether Ability awarded. Aether Ability "Perception Enhancement" (R5, Esper) awarded. Monster Defeated, Hatchling Basilisk, level 15. Aether Gained. Bonus Reward! Beneficial Mutation "Fangs of the Basilisk" awarded. Warning! If accepted, this reward will permanently alter your physical form. Accept or Decline? That was not how he''d expected the fight to go. That was a lot to take in following a fight that lasted about one second. One thing stood out in his mind: Danger Sense and Tactical Precognition agreed that it was once again safe to open his eyes. Chapter 29 Dan opened his eyes. He saw a very dead, normal looking green lizard. It was small, about a foot and a half from head to the tip of its tail, and its body was badly damaged by the Dark Bolt. Looks could indeed deceive. There was a window on one wall of the room, but other than that it was entirely nondescript. There was a door in, a dead lizard, a barred window, and a door out. He''d expected a Medusa of some kind. Ray flew up and landed on his shoulder. "Well done. I hope you''re not ruminating on how a physically small being could be powerful. I might have to take that personally." Dan couldn''t tell whether or not that had been a joke. As human as Ray often seemed, the bird was very much alien. It was easy to forget that. "I got a System message when it died. I''ve been offered as an additional reward a beneficial mutation called ''Fangs of the Basilisk''. Do you know anything about that, or beneficial mutations in general? I''d like a bit more data before I accept, though it seems pretty obvious that I should unless you tell me otherwise." "These rewards are known but uncommon. They take many forms, and typically are drawn from an aspect of the defeated monster. Some are of little use, or have a very narrow purpose. Some are considered unattractive by other members of your kind. Others are quite useful and require minimal change in appearance. What level was the monster?" "Level 15". "It was very dangerous, and of a much higher level than you. It is a reward for one who is the sole member of a party, and it is the first time this mini-boss has been defeated. All of this points to a good reward from the System. Have you tried asking the System for more information on it?" Dan did not admit that he hadn''t. His first thought had been to just ask Ray. Fangs of the Basilisk (Beneficial Mutation) (R6): Physical modification of head adding two fangs capable of injecting venom or spitting venom short distances and a venom gland. Modifies cranial bone structure and musculature to accommodate new body parts. Awards skill "Venom Spit" at level 1 of 10. Awards immunity to Basilisk Venom and 25% resistance to all toxins and acids. May allow access to other aether abilities and/or perks for selection. Dan read this off, verbatim, to his familiar. He waited for confirmation that getting stronger was useful, then accepted his reward. It wasn''t an easy decision, not really. It would transform him, make him less human in a tangible, inescapable and quite likely visible way. It wasn''t easy, but it was still no real choice at all. It was power. He needed power. Given what Sam, the System Administrator, had told him, it would be profoundly selfish to forfeit an opportunity to better his odds of getting home again for a reason as shallow as aesthetics. It wasn''t a reward he''d have hoped for, but it wasn''t one he could turn down.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Dan had assumed that a physical change to his body would require time, that he''d be able to feel it as it happened, that it would be painful. Instead it was instant. He accepted the reward, and now he had two fangs folded neatly in the roof of his mouth, as if they''d always been there. There was a venom gland also. It was full. He knew that his jaw could now open much wider. He knew how to use his fangs just as fully as every other part of his body, as if he''d been born knowing. It was freaky. He pulled out his stolen chef''s knife and used it as a crude mirror in the light that shined down from the window. His face looked the same. That was somehow both a relief and a disappointment. He turned and spat venom at a spot in the wall, five feet away. It flew in a small stream, tight at the start and spreading with distance, and began to sizzle when it hit rock. Very slowly it ate away at the wall for several seconds before its power was spent. Ray cocked their head and watched the wall. "Interesting. That does seem potent. There are many mutations stronger, but thinking monsters who have fought your kind before will not expect this." "Uh, thanks. Yeah, seems good. I''m pretty sure it''s got an effective range of about eight feet, which isn''t too far. I really don''t want to get into fights where biting a monster is the best thing to do. Those don''t seem like they''d end well for me. But it''s certainly better to have the option. The System said it might open up other perks. I''m gonna take a look." He found one. It was "Venom Gland Enhancement", and would increase the potency of his venom in both its acidic and neurotoxic elements. Apparently his venom was both acidic and neurotoxic then. With Ray''s assent, he took it, which left him with two perk points and four free aether abilities. Earlier, when Dan was not in a dungeon with monsters that could command swarms of deadly insects or quite literally kill you if you looked at them funny, the plan to keep a few perk points and aether abilities free had seemed quite sound. For as knowledgeable as Ray was, it''d still be better to learn from those the System classified as similar to him before spending such a precious, finite resource. On top of that, it was good to have them available to meet a specific need, such as a way to deal with poison, or if a new opportunity opened, such as the Venom Gland Enhancement he just took. That specifically was completely unforeseeable, but other options opening up was a known possibility. The logic there remained sound. It now felt wrong though. Shouldn''t he be using every resource he had to live through this dungeon? But that was his fear talking. If he sacrificed an arm now, metaphorically, what were the odds he''d be able to survive seven years of fighting monsters with that loss? He stuck to his guns and left his remaining points unspent. Next he asked Ray about his newly awarded aether ability, Perception Enhancement. It was simple, powerful, and rare (only beings with at least 100 Perception were known to have had it). For all aether abilities, perks, senses and mental effects that benefited from perception, it increased the attribute bonus by 20%. Better yet, it was another like Eagle Eye or Unerring Aim that he could just keep active all the time. His perception was now at 120. He activated Perception Enhancement. Immediately, all his senses became even more absurdly acute, and his mind grew proportionately more able to handle the increased flow of sensory data. His effective perception was more than double what it''d been at level one, when he''d first selected his Blessing and his mind was paralyzed, overwhelmed with the information the flooded into it. Days later, and with several additional senses unlocked, it felt pretty natural being able to have near absolute knowledge of his surroundings. Dan and Ray reviewed the human''s available perks and aether abilities, just in case there was something worth taking now, but nothing stood out. They continued through the door. This time, there was a very short, wide hallway. The floor was cut stone, tan rather than gray. There were ornate candelabras set into the walls that were lit and burnedbrightly. The door at the end was intricately carved wood enchanted with aether to block Dan''s Esper abilities. That was expected by now of course. There was writing on the door, and Dan found that Universal Translator worked on written as well as spoken language. Office of the Honored Warden. Do not enter without authorization. Dan and Ray were not invited. After a quick planning session, they opened the door anyway. Chapter 30 Dan opened the heavy wooden door into a spacious, well appointed room. The floor was unvarnished hardwood. The walls were of cut sandstone in two shades, one light and one darker, set in an intricate pattern of tessellations. At the center of the back wall an ornate brass candelabra held three large candles that burned merrily and lit the room. A weapons rack on the right wall held a number of spears and a few swords and daggers. Across from it a large wooden cabinet stood against the left wall. Close to the center of the room, nearer the back than the front, a long wooden table with a tabletop of the same cut stone tessellation as the walls sat low to the ground. The table held only a lit incense burner. Behind the table coiled the boss of the Dungeon. Dan immediately used System Identify. Fallen Naga Warden (Aural Adept), lvl 14. Monster Type: Fallen Naga Highblood It was no larger than the Fallen Naga Jailers had been - if anything, it had a more slender body. That body was covered in alternating green and yellow scales, and widened into a slight hood near its head, referential of a cobra more than similar to one. Dan''s senses assessed the creature. Danger Sense confirmed that it was incredibly dangerous. Sense Power ranked it as stronger than Dan and roughly equal to Ray. Sense Aether revealed an incredible density of the same type of aetherial Aura the Goblin Chieftain had wielded back on Dan''s Earth, in the initial trial. Sense Life helpfully informed him that the monster was in fact alive. Sense Weakness, genuinely helpfully, pointed out the eyes, nostrils, mouth, a point a quarter down the body, and another point near the tail as relative weak points. It held a large spear and its eyes were sharp, intelligent, and overflowing with malice. All of this information was gathered, processed and understood in a fraction of a second thanks to the frankly unreasonable benefits bestowed by the Chosen Esper Blessing. In that fraction of a second, the monster reacted and began to move. According to the very simple plan they''d agreed on ahead of time, Dan and Ray blasted the thing with a massive salvo of Dark Bolts, aiming for its head. The bolts flew too quickly for the Fallen Naga to dodge. Instead, the Aura of aether within it surged up and into its head. Aura met Dark Bolts in an energetic collision that sent a visceral shock wave through the room. The Naga emerged unharmed and exploded toward the two interlopers. Ray flitted aside and Dan dodged for his life. Fortunately, he had quite a lot of tools that helped him in that effort. A Perception attribute of 120 was itself surprisingly helpful for avoiding blows. The Danger Sense and Tactical Precognition senses that were granted at high levels of Perception were obviously invaluable. What was less obvious was the enormous difference that far better than human balance, reflexes, kinesthetic sense, and visual processing speed made when combined. Beyond that, the attribute point he''d earned for reaching level 9 brought his Agility to 36. In the strangely logic and physics defying way that attributes worked within the System, it really did seem to make him 3.6 times faster than a normal, healthy adult human man in the prime of life, without increasing his muscular strength. While it was less than a third of his insane level of Perception, 36 was a lot of Agility. Back when he first reached level one, he''d had a choice of any unlocked attribute to receive a bonus of +5, and had picked Agility. All 9 of his free attribute points from leveling had gone to Agility. He gained another +5 bonus to Agility (and all his other attributes) from the "Test Subject" title, and an additional +5 to all attributes from the "Vanguard" title. All of this meant that his Agility was equal to what someone without his advantages, who had a class focused on the attribute and had prioritized it at every opportunity, would have at level 9. Then added to his attributes he had the perks Enhanced Evasion One, Enhanced Evasion Two, and Combat Instinct, along with the Aether Ability Kinesthetic Enhancement. It was a very good thing he had all of that, because the monster was a much more skilled warrior. Its spear strikes were fast and precise, and the weapon itself was somehow imbued with the creature''s Aura. Dan had little experience in hand to hand armed combat, though he had wrestled as a young man. So it was hard to be certain of his judgment, and the tempo of the fight gave little time to think. But it seemed as if his opponent was holding back, testing his abilities and skills. If Dan were less focused on trying not to die, he might have felt embarrassed about his wanting combat proficiency. He hadn''t forgotten about his new mutation. His plan had been to spit venom at whatever this "Warden" turned out to be as soon as it got close enough. What Dan had not accounted for was his inexperience and simple survival instinct. When a snake monster with a dangerous, Aura infused spear charges at you with Aura boosted speed, it turns out that the imperative to get out of the way takes over and over-rules previously laid plans. That might have been for the best; if he''d taken the time to aim a spit volley at that point he may have been too slow to dodge. Now though, with the monster taking a cautious approach for the time being, he had recovered conscious control of himself and used it to launch venom from his sharp new fangs at the monster''s face, guided by the wonderfully helpful Aether Ability Unerring Aim. The Naga''s Aura surged again, but the venom was matter, physical rather than the strange Aetherial energy that made up Dark Bolt. It landed. Aura formed a transparent, infinitely thin shield over the scales of the Naga''s face and held the acidic venom at bay as it sizzled . Still, it was beads of liquid over the surface of the scales that covered the thing''s eyes. This made it difficult for the monster to see, like glasses speckled with rain. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Meanwhile, Ray flew to the back of the room and pooped on each candle, one, two, three. They snuffed out and all was dark. Dan had kinda expected his powerful familiar to take a more, well, traditional approach to the fight. Even so, pooping on candles did in fact make sense. Fallen Nagas seemed to rely pretty heavily on sight, whereas Dan and Ray had other options. The monster reacted with controlled violence and launched a flurry of spear thrusts at Dan, who dodged just as fast. He could feel the power within each thrust, amplified by Aura. There was every reason to believe a single strike he couldn''t dodge would kill, either directly or by injuring him enough that he could not continue to dodge. His best guess was that the monster was strong, durable, powerful in Aura, but had not focused on Agility. That slight weakness in the Naga''s attributes kept Dan alive. Tactical Precognition showed a chance, a moment when it was safe to run. He took it, and sprinted for the other side of the room. The Warden turned smoothly and advanced at a steady pace in his direction, apparently able to sense his body heat or else just tracking him by sound. There were other possible senses at play, but those seemed most likely. Dan''s straight line sprinting speed seemed to be faster than the Naga could slither, though it was quite quick in short, Aura enabled bursts. It had not repeated the rush of speed it had shown at the fight''s outset, either because it could not for some reason, such as a skill or perk cool down timer, or because it had not chosen to yet. The room was large, roughly 30 feet from front to back and 20 feet from side to side. Dan took the second or two his dash had bought him to whip a sling bullet at the monster, aimed at the center of its body mass. He had other weapons, but was only comfortable with his sling, and so had decided not to weigh himself down with an unfamiliar spear. Better to be able to dodge unhindered. Again the monster''s Aura surged and the lead projectile bounced off harmlessly. Dan waited with his weight on the balls of his feet, knees slightly bent, in the form that felt right to his perk granted combat instinct. The Warden drew within eight feet. Three things happened at once. Dan spit venom. The monster lunged forward and stabbed, scarily accurate given the darkness. Ray launched a Dark Bolt at its left arm. The venom hit the weak point on the Naga''s upper body, again blocked by a barrier of Aura. The monster managed to divert some Aura also to its arm, but the protection was incomplete and the limb was injured. Dan successfully dodged the strike, and launched a Dark Bolt of his own in retaliation, aimed at the weakened arm. The monster blocked it with Aura and stabbed again. Tactical Precognition, as useful as it was, did not give infinite time to view every possible iteration of the next few seconds and select the most favorable one. If it did, it probably would have been possible to find some golden moment when the monster''s focus slipped and a perfectly placed Dark Bolt could end the fight. As it was, Dan was content with having seen the spear strike before it began, and dodged in good time. Skill Learned: Dodge Level 1 Huh. Well, that was useful. There was no time to contemplate the implications of the System''s message though. Dan continued to dodge. The Warden continued to strike. Ray stayed back and contributed carefully timed Dark Bolts, aimed to disrupt attacks. Disconcertingly, the injury to the monster''s arm healed as Aura suffused the area. It had drawn heavily on its reservoir of Aura, which had dimmed in Dan''s Aether sense over the fight. But Dan was out of Aether Pool himself, and had to imagine Ray wasn''t in much better shape. They''d gone all out in the initial burst in hopes of ending the fight quickly. Now they were each limited by their rate of Aether Pool regeneration to about one fresh Dark Bolt every 43 seconds. The news was not all bad however. While the monster had seemed to shrug off the opening barrage of Dark Bolts unharmed, Sense Life showed that was not in fact true. It fully repelled the kinetic component of the attack, but Dark Bolt also dealt increased damage to living things. And the life force of the monster was slowly leaking, as if by poison. It was using Aura to fight the drain, and Aura to hold back the acidic venom that clung to its face and body, and Aura to empower its attacks, and Aura for bursts of speed. As deep as its well was, it had limits. Dan had limits too, mental and physical. He''d not kept count of how many spear thrusts he''d dodged, but it was a lot. The monster, even blind, had learned from his earlier escape and allowed Dan no windows to run back into the open area of the room. It slowly herded him toward a corner of the room, almost as a Rook and King combine to hunt down the King of enemy color in a chess endgame. Dan''s muscles and mind were strained and tired. A sudden wave of clarity and refreshment washed over him. Ray. Ray had an aether ability that they''d described as having a similar effect to a good, long nap. This was the first time they''d used it on him. It helped. It didn''t solve the problem of being gradually trapped in a corner before being impaled once he no longer had space to dodge, but it did help. It was morbidly interesting the degree of control the Naga had on its spear thrusts, even in the dark. Not one had hit the wall behind Dan and damaged the weapon, which he''d hoped would have happened by now. Close to the corner, Dan was forced to play one of his few remaining trump cards. He sent a quick telepathic warning to his familiar and used his Firestone Amulet to launch a large, System created and controlled fireball at the monster. Acting in a way completely dissimilar to natural fire, it flew a short distance through air, without any fuel to carry it, and washed over the Naga Warden. Dan was close enough that it should have burned him, but tactical precognition had already assured him that it would, against all reason, leave him untouched. Even though the floor was wood, nothing lit on fire. Whatever energy the System arbitrarily chose to define as Fire, it had only a distant relation to the real thing. The Fallen Naga reacted instantly and cloaked its entire body in defensive Aura. Again it seemed unharmed, protected by its aural shield, but such a sudden, broad use of Aura left it greatly depleted. Ray shot another Dark Bolt at the back of its head, and it could only partially deflect it. Dan used the distraction to spit more venom into its face, which was again blocked, and to escape back into the center of the room. Both sides of the fight were depleted, but Dan hoped that just maybe they were gradually winning. Maybe.